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CENTURY 
OF  SERVICE 

1815-1915 


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CE  NTURY 
OF  SERVICE 

1815-1915 


SilaSiPerrce  &  Company 

^       Limited 
BOSTON 


Copyright,   1916 
By  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  Ltd. 


PBK8B   OF   MUBBAT    AND    EUERT    COMPANT 
KENDALL    SQUABE,    CAMBBIDOE 


TO  OUR  CUSTOMERS 

WHO  HAVE  MADE  THIS  HISTORY  POSSIBLE 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 


"A  Century  of  Service"  —  thus  the  years 

Have  kept  a  record  of  the  good  deeds  done 

By  all  the  men  whose  training  sprang  from  one 

Who  started  doubtfully  'mid  hopes  and  fears. 

For  he,  far-sighted,  stout-willed  pioneer. 

So  careful,  planning,  toiling,  strong  in  all 

That  marks  the  man  who  listens  to  the  call 

Of  Right  and  Duty,  keeping  vision  clear. 

Was  but  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  men 

That  through  the  years  have  helped  his  cause  so  well. 

Striving  to  serve  their  fellows  worthily. 

Such  honors  as  they  gained  were  past  the  ken 

Of  the  ivise  founder.     To  their  lot  it  fell 

The  work  to  finish  —  that  he  did  foresee. 

—J.  B.  c. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

If  the  original  Silas  Peirce  had  had  any  idea  of  the 
task  it  would  be  one  hundred  years  after  he  started  in 
business  to  write  an  account  of  what  has  occurred  during 
the  "Century  of  Service"  that  he  and  his  family  have 
rendered  to  the  business  community  and  to  the  world, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  kept  a  record  so 
that  we  should  have  been  able  to  learn  something  of  his 
early  career  without  the  great  amount  of  work  that  has 
been  entailed  in  gathering  the  few  facts  presented  here. 
It  is  earnestly  hoped  that  any  one  who  has  in  mind  the 
welfare  of  the  historians  of  the  business  houses  that  start 
this  year  on  a  century  run,  will  keep  elaborate  notes  of 
their  doings.  In  Mr.  Peirce's  day,  however,  quill  pens 
that  needed  frequent  sharpening  were  not  conducive  to 
ready  writing.  It  even  took  longer  to  blot  correspon- 
dence then,  for  instead  of  blotting  paper  the  sand-box 
must  be  used,  as  witness  many  letters  and  bills  preserved 
from  those  days  on  which  the  adhering  sand  still  glistens. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book,  assistance  has  come 
from  many  and  varied  sources.  A  fact  here,  a  date  there, 
have  helped  to  round  out  the  story  of  an  American 
grocery  house,  unique  because  this  house  has  run  for  a 
hundred  years  under  the  founder's  name,  always  having  a 
member  of  his  family  of  the  same  name  in  the  concern. 
Mr.  Walter  K.  Watkins,  who  has  added  much  to  our 
knowledge  of  Old  Boston,  has  supplied  many  important 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


facts.  The  researches  of  Mr.  Gaillard  Hunt,  chief  of 
the  Division  of  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress,  have 
been  the  basis  of  the  notes  on  men's  fashions. 

Mr.  John  B.  Read,  of  WilUam  Read  &  Sons,  loaned  a 
picture  of  Market  Square,  reproduced  here,  which  has 
excited  the  interest  of  antiquarians;  the  Bostonian  So- 
ciety searched  carefully  through  hundreds  of  pictures 
for  views  of  the  Peirce  stores  and  put  its  valuable  library 
at  our  disposal;  Mr.  Charles  E.  Goodspeed,  the  book- 
seller, generously  gave  several  of  the  rare  prints  repro- 
duced, and  members  of  the  families  of  those  formerly 
connected  with  the  concern  have  done  everything  in  their 
power  to  furnish  the  best  pictures  of  relatives.  The  kindly 
spirit  exhibited  by  all  who  were  asked  for  data  or  pic- 
tures is  worthy  of  note.  So  rarely  is  one  solicited  for 
anything  that  relates  to  a  business  that  has  reached  the 
century  mark,  that  the  novelty  of  the  request  accounts 
for  some  of  the  interest  shown. 

J.  B.  CLAPP 

Boston,  April,  1915. 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


MiinimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiliiiliM 


'niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinT 


ILAS  PEIRCE,  the  first  of 
that  name  to  make  Boston 
his  home,  was  born  on  the 
old  farm  homestead  in  the 
village  of  Egypt,  in  Scituate, 
Massachusetts,  in  the  year 
1793.  This  farm  is  now  occu- 
pied by  Silas  Peirce,  the  third 
of  the  name,  who  is  of  the  ninth  generation  of 
ownership  and  president  of  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  Ltd. 
Their  ancestor  was  Captain  Michael  Peirce,  the 
famous  Indian  fighter,  who  probably  came  to  Amer- 
ica some  years  prior  to  1647,  the  year  in  which  he 
settled  in  Scituate,  and  his  descendants  grew  up 
on  the  farm.  He  was  killed  by  the  Indians  in 
King  Philip's  War,  but  his  name  and  fame  spread 
beyond  the  confines  of  the  colony  and  even  in  the 
distant  parts  of  New  England  the  savages  knew 
of  the  intrepid  fighter  who  had  done  so  much  to 
break  their  power  in  southeastern  Massachusetts. 

The  Founder  of  the  House 

Silas  Peirce  received  the  ordinary  country  school 
education  and  grew  up  on  the  farm  like  other  boys 

[1] 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


of  his  time  in  New  England,  doing  the  chores  about 
the  place  and  assisting  his  father  in  the  farm  work. 
He  also  assisted,  as  far  as  a  very  young  boy  could, 
in  the  duties  connected  with  the  country  tavern 
that  his  father  kept.  Though  there  were  not  many 
travellers  in  those  days,  this  was  the  only  inn  for 
miles  around,  and  doubtless  the  boy  gained  some 
idea  of  the  world  from  the  people  who  stopped 
there.  A  few  years  after  young  Silas  left  Egypt 
for  Boston,  the  family  moved  across  the  road  to 
the  homestead  that  is  still  standing.  In  the  wing 
of  this  house  Silas's  brother  opened  a  country  store, 
in  which  was  a  case  for  books  that  the  neighbors 
would  lend  to  each  other.  This  social  lending 
library,  established  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, was  one  of  the  first  in  that  section,  and  years 
afterward,  when  Silas  Peirce,  2d,  father  of  the  pres- 
ent Silas  Peirce,  lost  his  wife,  he  gave  as  a  memo- 
rial to  his  native  town  one  of  the  most  attractive 
libraries  to  be  found  in  the  State. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  first  Silas  Peirce 
had  his  imagination  and  his  desire  to  see  the  world 
stimulated  by  the  travellers'  tales  that  he  heard 
about  the  fireplace  in  his  father's  inn.  These  trav- 
ellers doubtless  gave  him  an  idea  of  what  was  going 
on  in  the  great  world  outside  the  little  village,  so 
when  he  was  fifteen  years  old  he  left  home  and  came 
to  Boston  to  seek  his  fortune.  He  began  work  in 
a  ship  carpenter's  shop,  where  for  a  fortnight  he 
wielded  his  tools  most  industriously,  but  one  day 
he  dropped  an  adze  on  his  foot  and  the  slight  acci- 


1111       1111       nil     111!      ifii     im      111!     iiu      nrr 


c^:^^^-^^!^ 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD. 


dent  changed  the  entire  course  of  his  life  and  inci- 
dentally led  to  the  founding  of  the  present  grocery 
business.  He  gave  up  the  ship  carpenter's  place 
and  found  work  in  an  importing  house.  Here  he 
remained  for  some  years,  getting  a  good  insight 
into  the  methods  of  the  merchants  and  importers. 
In  those  days  the  importing  houses  were  situated 
close  to  the  wharves,  and  the  young  clerk  visited 
many  ships  and  became  acquainted  with  the  oflS- 
cers  of  vessels  from  all  over  the  world. 

Voyage  to  Oporto 

The  firm  with  which  he  was  connected  had  deal- 
ings with  many  foreign  countries,  and  probably 
through  its  influence  he  went  as  supercargo  on  a 
vessel  that  sailed  for  Oporto,  Portugal,  in  1814. 
Oporto  was  then,  as  now,  the  most  important  sea- 
port of  the  country  after  Lisbon.  Only  five  years 
before  his  arrival  it  had  been  taken  from  the  French 
by  an  Anglo-Portuguese  force  under  Wellington, — 
that  same  great  general  who,  only  a  few  weeks  after 
the  supercargo  started  in  business  for  himself  over- 
threw Napoleon  at  Waterloo  and  made  1815  the 
most  important  year  of  modern  times.  The  town, 
one  of  the  dirtiest  and  most  picturesque  in  Europe, 
its  irregular  outline  accentuated  by  many  towers, 
its  whitewashed  houses  gleaming  among  trees  and 
terraced  gardens,  must  have  presented  a  strong 
contrast  in  the  young  man's  mind  to  the  staid 
Puritanical  Boston  that  he  had  left  at  the  other 
end  of  his  long  voyage.    No  doubt  on  his  return 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


trip  he  often  contrasted  mentally  the  filthy  streets 
and  the  uncomfortable  houses  of  the  Portuguese 
city  with  the  well-swept  streets  and  neat  dwell- 
ings of  the  Massachusetts  town,  and  this  voyage 
to  foreign  parts  convinced  him  that  Boston  was 
the  best  place  in  the  world  for  an  American.  At 
any  rate,  when  he  reached  Boston  he  remained  here 
and  never  left  again  as  long  as  he  lived. 

Boston  in  1815 

In  1814,  on  account  of  the  large  numbers  of 
militia  quartered  in  Boston,  local  trade  in  food- 
stuffs was  brisk.  On  the  thirteenth  of  February 
of  the  next  year  news  of  the  conclusion  of  the 
war  with  England  reached  here  and  the  town 
celebrated  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent. 
Peace  once  assured,  Boston  continued  to  grow 
rapidly.  The  census  of  1810  showed  more  than 
33,000  inhabitants,  and  by  1815  this  number  was 
increased  by  at  least  5000.  Every  one  was  doing 
his  share  to  make  the  town  a  better  place  in  which 
to  live  and  do  business,  for  every  one  was  keenly 
alive  to  the  necessity  of  increasing  the  importance 
of  the  town  as  a  mercantile  center.  The  last 
year  of  the  war  found  the  citizens  preparing  for 
a  possible  attack  by  the  British,  when  two  hun- 
dred grocers,  as  well  as  merchants  and  mechanics, 
lawyers  and  schoolmasters.  Harvard  students  and 
clerks,  took  pick  and  shovel  to  complete  forti- 
fications that  should  withstand  the  enemy.  Now 
that  the  hostilities  were  ended,  picks  and  shovels 


^^-^^y^z<^  <y^e^ 


-C^c^c^ 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD. 


were  used  for  a  different  purpose,  as  the  work  of 
filling  in  the  mill  pond,  bounded  by  what  are  now 
North  and  South  Margin  Streets,  which  had  been 
interrupted  by  the  war,  proceeded  rapidly  and 
large  numbers  of  laborers  found  employment. 

The  importation  of  goods  from  abroad  had  almost 
entirely  ceased  during  the  War  of  1812,  and  the 
spring  of  1815  saw  a  great  revival  of  business  in 
this  direction.  Besides,  the  resumption  of  trade 
with  the  West  Indies  was  important.  It  had  been 
customary  before  the  war  to  ship  fish,  hoops  and 
staves,  and  other  distinctly  New  England  prod- 
ucts to  the  West  Indies,  where  the  vessels  would 
reload  with  molasses,  sugar  and  rum  for  England. 
Then  they  would  return  to  New  England  with 
articles  of  British  manufacture.  All  this  business 
had  been  practically  killed  by  the  war  and  its 
resumption  meant  much  to  Boston  and  its 
merchants. 

Food  and  Fashions 

An  adequate  picture  of  life  in  the  town  when  the 
returned  supercargo  opened  his  store  would  fill 
many  pages.  The  citizens  were  hard  working  and 
plain  living,  and  while  there  was  little  poverty,  the 
number  of  wealthy  men  was  small,  so  that  the  gro- 
cer was  not  obliged  to  carry  a  large  assortment  of 
fancy  groceries.  Indeed,  the  mechanic  or  laboring 
man  of  today  who  earns  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
dollars  a  week  has  a  greater  variety  of  food  on  his 
table  than  the  wealthy  men  of  Mr.  Peirce's  early 


6  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

days.  There  is  one  important  fact  in  connection 
with  Mr.  Peirce's  career  that  should  be  mentioned 
here.  Years  and  years  ago,  before  the  "Pure  Food  " 
question  had  ever  arisen,  he  used  to  say  that  he 
had  always  prided  himself  on  selling  pure  goods, 
and  that  he  thought  the  grocer  who  sold  adulterated 
articles,  while  perhaps  making  larger  profit  on  them 
than  on  better  goods,  would  lose  by  such  sales  in 
the  long  run.  He  was  always  glad  to  think  of  him- 
self as  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the  pure  food  move- 
ment. 

But  if  the  people  of  Mr.  Peirce's  early  days  were 
living  simply  on  plain  food,  they  were  also  dressing 
in  what  seemed  to  certain  old-fashioned  Bostonians 
an  extremely  plain  and  radical  fashion.  For  the 
past  year  or  two  the  costumes  for  men  had  been 
in  a  transition  state.  Gorgeous  coats  and  bro- 
caded waistcoats,  with  silk  knickerbockers  and 
silver  buckled  shoes  were  now  worn  only  by  a  few 
of  the  wealthy  and  conservative  Bostonians,  for 
it  was  in  the  Waterloo  year  that  pantaloons  had 
come  into  use  in  this  country.  These  were  worn 
by  the  younger  men,  although  there  was  much 
variety  in  the  costumes  and  at  any  gathering  of 
note  the  dress  of  the  younger  generation  was  be- 
coming strikingly  plain.  At  such  a  gathering  there 
would  be  seen  square-skirted  coats  and  others  of  a 
style  just  coming  in  vogue  made  of  green  or  blue  cloth 
with  large  gilt  or  pearl  buttons,  a  high  rolling  collar 
and  long  narrow  tails,  reaching  down  to  the  calves. 
Starch  had  been  introduced  into  the  neckcloths  of 


iiu       1111      nil     uu      ifii     nil      nil     111!      mr 


In  a  Stobe  in  this  Building  Silas  Peirce  Began  Business  April  1,  1815 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD. 


the  gentry  of  Europe  and  the  fashion  had  reached 
America.  Shirt  collars  were  so  high  that  they  touched 
the  wearer's  ears.  "Pudding  cravats"  were  designed 
to  make  the  chest  look  deep,  and  stocks  were  just 
coming  into  use.  There  were  a  few  old  men  who  still 
powdered  their  hair  and  a  few  dandies  had  theirs 
curled,  but  most  men  wore  the  hair  long  and  parted 
on  the  side.  In  all  these  fashions  the  one  that  most 
affected  the  grocer  was  the  introduction  of  the  stiff 
neckcloth,  which  helped  the  sale  of  starch. 

The  First  Store 

Young  Peirce  had  the  shrewd  Yankee  instinct 
for  barter  and  trade,  which  had  been  sharpened 
by  his  years  of  service  in  the  importing  house  and 
by  his  experience  as  supercargo.  He  lost  no  time 
after  his  return  in  looking  about  for  a  location  in 
which  to  start  in  business  for  himself.  Soon  he 
found  a  building  at  13  Dock  Square,  later  num- 
bered 21,  which  he  thought  suitable  for  the  grocery 
business.  The  building  is  still  standing  and  is 
occupied  by  several  business  concerns.  It  was 
owned  by  the  town  of  Boston  as  late  as  1795,  and 
in  that  year  was  sold  by  auction  to  the  highest 
bidder,  the  Rev.  Isaac  Story  of  Marblehead,  a 
prominent  clergyman  of  that  town,  for  whom  the 
Story  School  was  named.  The  building  in  1795 
was  described  as  of  brick  and  wood,  four  stories 
high  and  covering  eight  hundred  square  feet.  It 
was  valued  three  years  later  at  $8000.  In  1850  it 
was  occupied  by  Johonnot  &  Saunders,  hardware. 


8  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

and  later  the  next  neighbor  towards  the  market 
was  George  Fenno,  famous  as  the  originator  of  the 
advertising  phrase,  famihar  to  all  Boston  lads  of  a 
half  century  ago,  "Clothe  Your  Boys  at  Fenno's." 
In  time  Fenno  acquired  the  whole  building. 

At  the  sale  of  the  property  in  1795  the  following 
notice   was   circulated: 


AUCTION 
At  11  A.M.  Monday  15  June  1795 
Three  very  valuable  Brick  Stores  fronting  Dock  Square 
and  adjoining  the  Market  being  the  most  advantageous  stand 
for  Business  in  the  Town  of  Boston,  now  occupied  by  William 
Dawes,  Jr.,  Austin  &  Crocker  &  Eliakim  Morse;  also  row  of 
bldgs  improved  as  shops  fronting  Concert  Hall. 


In  April,  1815,  Mr.  Peirce  opened  his  store.  He 
was  then  just  past  his  majority  and  was  far  more 
active  and  alert  than  the  average  business  man, 
for  his  experience  at  sea  had  done  much  to  develop 
him. 

In  the  Militia 

When  the  country  boy  first  came  to  Boston  he 
was  naturally  much  interested  in  seeing  the 
soldiers  when  they  marched  in  honor  of  some 
special  event  or  escorted  some  dignitary  to  his 
hotel.  On  Artillery  Election  he  followed  the 
Ancients  as  they  paraded,  and  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  that  he  soon  joined  the  militia,  and  doubt- 
less on  his  return  from  Portugal  had  an  oppor- 
tunity    to    train     with    his    fellows     before     the 


An  Eably  View  of  Dock  Square,  where  the  First  Store  was  Located 

From  the  collection  of  Dr.  Nathaniel  B.  Shurtleff  in  the  possession  of 
the  Bostonian  Society. 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD. 


announcement  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  for  Boston 
was  full  of  militia  at  that  time.  After  he  had 
started  in  business  he  still  attended  to  his  military 
duties  and  in  1816  was  made  an  ensign.  Two 
years  later  he  was  promoted  to  be  a  lieutenant 
and  in  1821  he  became  captain  of  the  Seventh 
Company  of  the  First  Regiment,  Colonel  Thaddeus 
Page  commanding.  In  1823  he  was  changed  to 
the  Second  Company,  of  which  he  remained 
captain  for  years.  The  First  Regiment  belonged 
to  the  Third  Brigade  of  the  First  Division  of  the 
Massachusetts  Militia.  Meanwhile,  in  the  year 
that  he  was  made  a  captain,  he  joined  the  Ancient 
and  Honorable  Artillery  Company,  and  began  to 
take  an  interest  in  the  affairs  of  that  organiza- 
tion. To  his  friends  and  to  many  of  his  customers 
he  was  always  "Captain  Peirce,"  and  letters  that 
have  been  preserved  show  that  it  was  the  custom 
to  address  him  as  "Captain  Silas  Peirce,  Merchant." 

Retail  Prices  in  1815 

The  prices  of  groceries  at  the  time  that  Mr. 
Peirce  started  in  business  were  so  different  from 
those  at  present  that  a  few  figures  may  be  of 
interest.  At  that  time  sugar,  the  brown  Havana 
sugar  that  did  not  entirely  disappear  from  the 
grocer's  stock  until  after  the  Civil  War,  retailed 
at  14  cents  a  pound.  Molasses  was  80  cents  per 
gallon  at  retail,  Hyson  tea  $1.40  a  pound,  rice  4^ 
cents  a  pound,  common  salt  11  cents  a  quart,  and 
malt  $1.50  a  bushel.     A  few  weeks  after  Mr.  Peirce 


10  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

had  opened  his  first  store  in  Dock  Square  a  bill  of 
groceries  was  sold  by  one  of  his  retail  neighbors 
amounting  to  $9.31.  This  consisted  largely  of  New 
England  rum,  the  total  amount  of  the  groceries 
being  less  than  one-half  of  the  value  of  the  rum, 
which  was  sold  at  $1.10  per  gallon.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  payment  for  these  items  was  made 
largely  in  butter  at  24  cents  a  pound  and  eggs  at 
20  cents  per  dozen.  In  making  the  settlement  the 
wise  Boston  grocer  took  no  chances  of  a  mistake 
occurring  in  the  bill,  and  instead  of  receipting  it, 
simply  marked  it  "errors  excepted"  and  signed  his 
name. 

The  great  changes  that  a  century  has  made  in 
prices  will  be  seen  from  the  above,  for  it  must  be 
remembered  that  in  1815  the  purchasing  power  of 
a  dollar  was  probably  from  two  to  two  and  one-half 
times  as  great  as  at  present.  Molasses  at  what 
would  be  now  two  dollars  per  gallon  is  an  advance 
on  even  the  "war  prices"  that  so  many  of  the 
grocers  of  two-score  years  ago  used  to  quote. 

In  Market  Square 

The  young  grocer  remained  in  his  first  location 
for  a  year,  and  in  1816  moved  to  No.  6  Market 
Square,  on  the  south  side  of  Faneuil  Hall.  On 
November  16,  1819,  this  was  described  in  a  court 
document  as  "a  Shop  numbered  six  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Market."  This  store  was  in  a  brick 
dwelling  of  three  stories,  which  had  just  been  sold 
by  Nathaniel  Noyes,  an  apothecary,  who  had  kept 


WOODEN-WAR  iSjjjl 


iin     [111     iii[     nil    nil    nil    mi    im    mi     im     mi    \^ 


Second  Store  Occupied  by  Silas  Peirce,  M.miket   Square,  1816 

Described  in  Early  Records  as  "The  Shop  numbered  six 
on  the  south  side  of  Market  Square." 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  11 

a  shop  there  since  the  Revolution,  to  Captain 
William  Thompson  of  Charlestown.  On  the  east 
side  of  this  house  was  Corn  Court  and  on  the  west 
was  Fitche's  Alley,  afterwards  Flagg  Alley,  then 
Change  Alley,  and  now  Change  Avenue.  This 
passageway  was  originally  named  Pierce's  Alley,  in 
compliment  to  the  captain  of  the  Mayflower.  The 
building  covered  a  thousand  feet  of  land  space 
and  was  lighted  by  twenty-six  windows,  a  large 
number  for  a  building  of  that  size  at  that  time. 
According  to  the  earliest  picture  extant,  the  front 
was  clapboarded,  but  this  was  probably  done  after 
Mr.  Peirce's  day.  Back  of  the  store  ran  an  ex- 
tremely narrow  passageway  called  Damnation  Alley, 
through  which  one  could  go  to  the  Hancock  House, 
which  was  said  to  have  sheltered  Louis  Philippe  when 
that  monarch  was  for  a  short  time  an  exile  here. 

Afterwards  the  Peirce  store  was  demolished  to 
make  room  for  a  stone  building  that  was  occupied 
by  the  Reads,  dealers  in  firearms,  and  it  was  here 
that  the  police  boldly  met  the  trouble  makers 
during  the  draft  riots  in  July,  1863,  when  thirty 
people  were  killed. 

Some  ten  years  later,  in  the  upper  attic  of  the 
Read  store,  the  writer,  in  preparing  for  a  mountain 
trip,  found  a  knapsack  that  had  been  captured 
by  Northern  troops  during  the  Civil  War  when 
the  Confederates  were  trying  to  run  the  blockade 
at  Charleston,  S.  C.  Within  recent  years  the 
stone  store  has  given  place  to  a  brick  building 
that  is  now  leased  by  a  firm  of  seed  merchants. 


12  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

West  India  Goods 

Mr.  Peirce  occupied  store  No.  6  as  a  "grocer." 
In  the  cellars  were  George  Leland,  provisions, 
and  Elijah  Bruce,  "stall  keeper."  Evidently  Mr. 
Bruce  was  a  butcher,  so  that  under  one  roof  the 
thrifty  citizens  of  the  town  could  buy  everything 
that  was  needed  in  the  way  of  food.  Later,  when 
Mr.  Peirce  moved  to  Elm  Street,  it  was  as  a 
dealer  in  "West  India  goods  and  groceries."  Just 
what  the  distinction  was  between  a  grocer  and  a 
dealer  in  West  India  goods  and  groceries,  even  the 
most  learned  antiquarians  who  have  studied  the 
history  of  Boston  are  unable  to  state  positively. 
It  was  about  the  time  that  Mr.  Peirce  started  in 
business  that  grocers  added  "W.  I.  Goods"  to 
their  signs.  In  that  year  there  were  listed  one 
hundred  and  ten  dealers  in  "W.  I.  Goods"  in 
the  town  of  Boston,  besides  a  large  number  who 
called  themselves  simply  "grocers."  As  the  latter 
class  had  stores  in  the  residential  district  it  is 
likely  that  at  first  the  retail  grocers  did  not 
designate  themselves  as  dealers  in  West  India 
goods. 

The  Famous  Bite  Tavern 

Few  locations  in  the  old  town  appeal  more 
strongly  to  historians  and  antiquarians  than  the 
"Shop  numbered  six  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Market."  A  century  before  the  Corn  Market, 
"on  Pierce's  Alley,"  held  in  front  of  the  site 
of    the    Peirce    store,    had   brought   trade   to    the 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  13 

vicinity,  and  now  with  Boston's  market  business 
all  done  near  the  store,  no  wonder  that  the  young 
grocer  thought  his  new  move  beneficial  and  wise. 
Close  by  was  the  Bite  Tavern,  built  in  1795,  a 
three-story  wooden  house.  During  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  this  building  was  numbered 
8  Market  Square.  At  one  time  it  was  known  as 
the  "Bight  of  Leogan,"  which  may  have  been  its 
original  name.  Few  of  the  names  of  old  Boston 
landmarks  have  been  more  discussed  than  this. 
According  to  Webster  a  bight  is  "a  bend  in  the 
sea-coast  forming  an  open  bay,"  and  the  suggestion 
has  been  made  that  the  name  came  from  the  town 
of  Leogane  on  the  west  coast  of  Hayti,  which  lies 
in  the  angle  or  bight  of  the  Gulf  of  Leogane.  Pos- 
sibly some  returned  sea-captain  suggested  the  name. 
Certain  it  is  that  in  the  thirties  the  boys  at  the  Fort 
Hill  School  when  studying  geography  were  taught 
by  Charles  Fox,  the  master,  that  the  peculiar  shape 
of  the  lot  on  which  the  Bight  Tavern  stood  was 
a  good  illustration  of  that  portion  of  the  sea  called 
a  "bight."  The  teacher  was  a  very  old  man  and 
insisted  that  the  name  of  the  tavern  was  originally 
Bight,  but  was  gradually  changed  to  Bite,  as  the 
latter  related  more  to  its  use  than  its  form. 

In  the  picture  of  the  second  Peirce  store,  taken 
probably  in  the  late  fifties,  the  word  "Bite"  is  con- 
spicuous on  the  tavern  signs.  The  house  was  a 
favorite  resort  for  the  merchants  and  marketmen 
who  wanted  their  drinks  regularly  at  eleven  in  the 
morning  and  four  in  the  afternoon,  and  was  noted 


14  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

for  the  excellence  of  its  table  as  well  as  the  quality 
of  its  liquors.  Famous  as  the  resort  of  checker 
players,  the  visitor  could  usually  find  some  enthu- 
siasts having  a  quiet  game  at  almost  any  hour  of 
the  day  or  evening. 

Horatio  Harris  and  the  "Bite" 

There  is  a  story  that  may  be  apocryphal  but  is 
apropos,  because  each  of  the  three  Peirces  was  a 
friend  of  Horatio  Harris,  the  auctioneer,  of  whom 
it  is  told.  Mr.  Harris  was  known  to  thousands  of 
Bostonians  and  his  auction  sales  were  always  lively, 
for  he  was  quick-witted  and  bidders  rarely  got  the 
better  of  him.  He  was  once  auctioning  the  tickets 
for  a  Jenny  Lind  concert  and  the  bids  kept  the 
prices  at  good  figures.  "Sold  to  the  Tremont 
House,"  "Sold  to  the  American  House,"  he  would 
say  when  accepting  bids  for  the  guests  of  the  hotels. 
At  last  five  tickets  were  run  up  to  a  price  so 
high  that  the  bidder  hesitated  to  take  the  seats. 
"Whose  bid?"  asked  the  auctioneer,  but  there  was 
no  response.  "What  name.'^"  again  queried  Mr. 
Harris,  after  a  pause,  and  this  time  came  the 
answer,  much  to  the  amusement  of  the  crowd, 
"Bite  Tavern." 

Partners  and  Changes 

In  1818,  Mr.  Peirce  took  as  a  partner  William 
Thompson,  Jr.,  son  of  the  owner  of  the  building  in 
which   the   store   was   situated.     Two  years  later 


i"ii"""'"iniiiiiiiiiiii,i,i'.iiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii3 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  15 

they  had  another  partner,  William  Borrows,  who 
remained  with  them  for  one  year.  In  the  fall  of 
1822  Mr.  Peiree  removed  to  No.  2,  Sears  Build- 
ings, Elm  Street,  a  store  in  a  block  built  by  David 
Sears,  where  he  continued  the  business  alone. 
Mr.  Thompson  kept  on  in  business  in  Market 
Square  for  a  decade  longer. 

On  November  18,  1822,  the  Boston  Commercial 
Gazette  published  the  following  advertisement: 

SILAS  PEIRCE 

Has  taken  Store  No.  21,  (sic)  Sears  Buildings,  Elm 
Street,  where  he  offers  for  sale,  a  good  assortment  of 
SUPERIOR  GROCERIES,  and  respectfully  solicits  the 
patronage  of  his  friends  and  the  public. 

4  wis  Nov.  18 

The  movement  of  his  business  northward  was 
really  the  result  of  good  judgment  on  the  part  of 
the  young  grocer.  Some  of  the  leading  merchants 
were  interested  in  developing  Boston  towards  the 
north,  and  Mr.  Peiree,  learning  of  their  plan,  de- 
termined to  take  advantage  of  this  growth.  In 
1817,  David  Sears  and  other  progressive  Bos- 
tonians  had  cut  through  and  laid  out  Market 
Street,  now  known  as  Cornhill.  Later  some  of 
these  men  had  become  interested  in  the  City 
Market  on  Brattle  Street,  a  building  that  ran 
through  to  Elm  Street.  Years  afterwards-  the 
building  was  occupied  by  the  Allen  Furniture 
Company.  It  was  to  a  store  next  to  this  City 
Market  that  Mr.  Peiree  moved.     The  projectors  of 


16  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

the  new  market  felt  sure  that  it  would  become  the 
"great  market"  of  the  young  city;  but  for  some 
reason  the  authorities  discouraged  the  project,  with 
the  result  that  the  large  Faneuil  Hall  Market, 
popularly  known  as  Quincy  Market,  was  built 
in  1826  and  the  City  Market  building  taken  for 
other  purposes. 

The  grocer,  however,  had  made  a  good  move, 
as  there  had  been  changes  in  the  neighborhood 
which  made  the  location  desirable.  David  Sears, 
owner  of  the  block  in  which  the  store  was  located, 
owned  also  a  large  number  of  buildings  in  the 
vicinity,  many  of  which  were  leased  for  long  terms  of 
years.  Later  Mr.  Sears's  real  estate  holdings  became 
the  basis  of  the  organized  "Fifty  Associates"  from 
whom  the  firm  hired  the  Elm  Street  store. 

Elm  Street  Store 

The  new  grocery  store  was  of  brick  and  was 
occupied  at  first  only  in  part  by  Mr.  Peirce,  the 
upper  portion  of  the  building  being  used  as  a  hotel. 
The  innholders  who  kept  the  house  were  con- 
stantly changing.  It  was  on  the  south  side  of 
the  street  next  to  an  eight-foot  passageway  running 
along  the  east  side  of  the  City  Market.  Almost 
opposite  was  Wildes'  Hotel,  one  of  the  most 
popular  places  in  the  city  for  the  country  folk 
to  visit.  The  hotel  did  a  large  business  in  stabling 
the  horses  of  the  country  merchants  who  drove  to 
Boston,  sometimes  in  their  carriages,  but  more 
often  in  their  large  canvas-covered  wagons,  in  which 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  17 

they  transported  the  goods  bought  here  back  to  the 
villages  of  New  England. 

Across  the  street  stood  the  house  in  which  Edward 
L.  Davenport,  the  famous  actor,  father  of  Fanny 
Davenport,  was  born  in  1815.  This  house,  as  well 
as  a  part  of  the  Peirce  store  annex,  was  torn  down 
on  the  widening  of  Washington  Street. 

In  1846  Mr.  Peirce  enlarged  his  quarters  by 
hiring  the  building  on  the  east  of  his  store  that  was 
owned  by  the  heirs  of  Samuel  Torrey.  The  store 
was  then  numbered  22  and  25  Elm  Street.  In 
1854,  22  and  25  Elm  Street  became  49  and  51.  In 
those  days  the  city  fathers,  not  having  a  large 
amount  of  business  on  their  hands,  were  contin- 
ually changing  the  names  and  the  numbers  of  the 
different  streets,  which  was  annoying,  but  was 
comparatively  harmless,  considering  the  mischief 
that  they  might  have  done. 

Three  or  four  years  after  he  began  business,  Mr. 
Peirce  had  married  Hannah  Lopez,  a  school  mis- 
tress living  on  Charter  Street.  The  couple  first 
lived  at  No.  5  Portland  Place  on  the  north  side  of 
Portland  Street,  between  Hanover  and  Sudbury. 
The  place  is  now  built  over.  In  1825  they  had 
moved  to  Derne  Street,  then  becoming  quite  a 
fashionable  residential  section.  Hannah  Lopez  was 
the  daughter  of  John  and  Hannah  (Tuckerman) 
Lopez  and  was  connected  with  that  Lopez  fam- 
ily whose  fame  as  merchants  had  spread  to  every 
port  in  Europe.  She  was  born  in  Boston  in  1793, 
and  died  here  at  the  great  age  of  ninety-two. 


18  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Wildes' 

When  Mr.  Peirce  kept  in  Dock  Square  and  in 
Market  Square  he  was  on  historic  ground.  There 
was  no  more  important  section  of  Old  Boston  than 
that  which  lies  around  Faneuil  Hall,  for  the  corn 
market,  the  town  dock,  the  early  buildings,  some  of 
them  dating  back  to  within  a  few  decades  of  the  land- 
ing of  the  Pilgrims,  all  combined  to  make  that  part  of 
the  town  interesting  to  those  who  a  century  ago 
could  see  some  of  these  historic  places  and  hear  the 
traditions  about  those  which  had  passed  away.  One 
building,  the  "Old  Feather  Store,"  built  in  1680, 
was  not  torn  down  until  1860.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  better  records  were  not  kept  of  these  surround- 
ings, for  their  full  history  would  show  the  large  place 
that  they  held  in  the  story  of  Boston. 

Elm  Street  was  famous  for  its  hotels,  one  of  the 
most  famous  being  Wildes',  nearly  opposite  the 
Peirce  store.  Next  to  Wildes'  at  9  Elm  Street  was 
Jacob  Barnard's  stage  office,  from  which  many  stages 
started.  In  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Patterson's  House  became  a  tavern  and  stage  house 
at  11  Elm  Street,  and  in  1826  it  was  taken  by 
Solomon  Wildes.  By  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury it  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Moses  Wildes, 
and  old  Bostonians  are  still  living  who  remember 
that  innkeeper.  All  through  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  this  tavern  was  the  starting  place  for 
various  stage  lines  and  it  was  one  of  the  places 
where  books  were  kept  for  passengers  who  desired 
the   stages   to  call  for  them.    In  1828  the  stage 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  19 

for  Haverhill,  Exeter,  Dover  and  Portland  left 
there  every  week  day  at  7.30  a.m.,  arriving  at 
Portland  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
next  day. 

Stage  Coach  Days 

The  Dorchester  and  Milton  stage  left  Wildes'  at 
four  P.M.  daily.  It  went  through  Roxbury  and  Dor- 
chester, a  distance  of  seven  miles,  the  fare  being 
thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents.  The  Boston  and 
Lowell  stage  left  the  same  tavern  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon  by  way  of  Charlestown,  Medford, 
Woburn  and  Billerica.  The  distance  was  twenty-six 
miles  and  the  fare  was  one  dollar  and  a  quarter. 

On  Monday,  Wednesday  and  Saturday  a  stage 
left  Wildes'  at  3.30  p.m.  for  Newton  Upper  Falls, 
Dover  and  Medway.  On  Monday,  Tuesday,  Thurs- 
day and  Saturday  a  stage  left  for  Uxbridge  at  noon, 
running  through  Brighton,  Newton,  Natick,  HoUis- 
ton  and  Milford,  the  fare  being  two  dollars.  There 
were  two  lines  of  stages  running  to  Weymouth  on  week 
days  at  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  for  a 
sixty-two  and  one-half  cent  fare.  A  daily  stage  for 
Watertown  and  Waltham  left  at  four  p.m.,  the  fare 
being  thirty-seven  and  one-half  cents  to  the  former 
place  and  fifty  cents  to  the  latter.  These  prices 
seem  high  considering  the  value  of  money  at  that 
time  and  the  present  low  rates.  For  long  distances 
horses  were  changed  every  ten  or  fifteen  miles  and 
travellers  were  obliged  to  be  early  risers,  as  they  often 
had  to  put  in  long  days  on  the  road. 


20  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Other  figures  regarding  stage  coach  travelHng  of 
that  time  are  interesting.  The  Albany  mail  stage 
left  Boyden's,  No.  1  Dock  Square,  at  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning  on  Tuesdays,  Thursdays  and  Saturdays 
for  the  New  York  Capital.  Springfield  was  the 
principal  stopping  place  on  the  road.  After  crossing 
the  Connecticut  River  the  stage  went  on  to  Ely's, 
stops  being  made  on  the  road  at  Emerson's  Tavern 
in  Westfield;  at  Knox's  in  Blandford;  at  Rowley's  or 
Emerson's  in  Greenwood;  at  Chad  wick's  in  Tyring- 
ham;  at  Root's  in  Great  Barrington;  and  at  Hicks's 
in  Egremont.  From  this  inn  ran  also  the  Plymouth 
and  Sandwich  stage,  the  trip  to  the  latter  place 
taking  exactly  twelve  hours.  This  stage  left  Boston 
on  Tuesdays,  Thursdays  and  Saturdays,  returning  on 
Mondays,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays. 

Another  tavern  on  Elm  Street  was  Bradley's, 
from  which  the  stage  ran  to  Amherst,  N.  H.,  and 
Windsor,  Vt.,  carrying  the  mail.  This  stage  left 
on  Tuesdays,  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays,  usually 
reaching  Windsor  at  four  p.m.  on  the  day  following. 
Passengers  on  the  Saturday  stage  spent  Sunday  at 
some  point  on  the  road.  From  Windsor,  another 
stage  ran  to  Burlington,  Vt.  As  the  journey  be- 
tween these  points  could  be  made  in  fifty-six  hours 
under  favorable  circumstances,  it  is  easy  to  figure 
that  the  traveller  who  started  on  Saturday  took  the 
better  part  of  a  week  in  making  a  journey  of  less 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 

Bradley's  Tavern  also  was  the  starting  point  of 
the  stage  for  Hanover,  N.  H.,  which  went  by  way  of 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  21 

Andover  and  Haverhill  and  through  Concord,  N.  H. 
This  stage  started  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  and 
sometimes  reached  Concord,  N.  H.,  in  twelve  hours. 
Twice  each  week  this  stage  went  from  Concord  to 
Hanover,  the  trip  between  these  places  taking  eleven 
hours. 


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/_ ^JL.-*^f^^ 

Often  the  dealers  sent  their  own  wagons  over 
the  stage  route  and  it  is  a  conservative  estimate 
that  the  trip  took  usually  twice  as  long  as  by 
coach.  The  letter  from  Hanover,  N.  H.,  repro- 
duced here,  is  interesting  as  it  indicates  the  method 


22 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


of  transportation  four-score  years  ago,  and  also  is 
eloquent  testimony  to  the  confidence  that  the 
customers  had  in  the  house,  a  confidence  that 
succeeding  generations  have  continued  to  express. 


Mail  Charges 

Six  hours  was  the  time  of  the  Newburyport  stage 
in  its  daily  trips  (Sundays  excepted)  to  and  from 
Boston.  The  Newburyport  stage  started  from 
Hale's  Inn  in  Ann  Street,  now  North  Street,  every 
week  day  at  noon.  The  regular  eastern  mail  also 
left  from  this  inn  every  morning  at  ten  o'clock.  It 
was  due  at  Salem  in  two  hours,  reached  Newburyport 
at  half  past  three,  and  at  half  past  six  was  in  Ports- 
mouth, N.  H.  Half  an  hour  later  the  stage  went  on 
to  Kennebunk,  reaching  there  at  midnight,  then 
leaving  for  Portland,  and  if  conditions  were  favorable, 
arriving  there  at  half  past  eight  the  next  morning. 


im     mi     mr     im     im    mi    im    mt     mi     mi     tttt 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  23 

The  mention  of  the  Newburyport  stage  is  a  re- 
minder of  the  address  of  a  letter  reproduced  here  that 
was  brought  by  one  of  these  coaches  in  1824.  In 
those  days  the  charge  for  carrying  a  letter  of  one 
sheet  was  eight  cents  for  forty  miles,  ten  cents  for 
ninety  miles,  twelve  and  one-half  cents  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  twenty  cents  for  five 
hundred  miles.  Any  letter  weighing  an  ounce  was 
counted  as  four  single  letters.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  there  were  no  envelopes  in  those  days, 
the  sheets  being  folded  and  sealed  and  the  address 
written  on  the  outside.  Magazines  and  pamphlets 
were  carried  to  distances  of  over  one  hundred  miles 
for  two  cents  per  sheet,  the  minimum  charge  for  the 
distance  under  fifty  miles  being  half  that  amount. 

First  Business  Card 

Some  thirty  years  ago  Mr.  C.  C.  Rowland,  a 
customer  who  had  a  store  on  Shawmut  Avenue, 
Boston,  went  to  Dover,  N.  H.,  to  settle  the 
affairs  of  his  uncle,  E.  C.  Andrews,  who  had  just 
died.  Among  the  papers  left  by  Mr.  Andrews 
was  a  card  which  he  had  received  from  the  first 
Silas  Peirce  in  1828.  The  card  was  probably 
printed  in  1822.  At  the  time  that  the  firm  cele- 
brated its  seventy-fifth  anniversary  fac-similes  of 
the  card,  on  the  same  style  of  brown  pasteboard 
that  was  used  in  the  original,  were  distributed 
among  the  customers.  These  fac-similes  were  sent  to 
various   parts   of   the   country,   and   one   day    the 


24 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


i«MIMIIMIII>MIIMHMtMMIWtllMllNMMM»MM"MIMMIMMMHM»88MllimMHi 

I  f  JVO.  a.  SEARS'  BUJLDTJ^&S,  ELM  STREET,  BOSTOJ^,  ]  \ 

Bit  OOXSTAVnX  (AT  »niOlKSAlS  AHD  HCTAIL,}  A  COJCTUTK 


i^f7SS'S?»mMik  (&^^m  ^  (mmmsmii 


JssOMT/tEfrr  or  svrEttOM 


»V12: 


'.  ;TeM, 
;  iSugar, 
:  :Coffee, 
'  iSpices, 

;  :Rais!ni, 
i  iCurraAtf, 


; !  Grapes, 
: ;  Prunes, 
: ;  Nuta, 
: :  Oils, 
■ ;  Winei, 
;  ■  Spirits, 
'•  '•  Cbrdials, 


:  Olires, 

;  Capers, 

[  Fish  Sauces, 

;  Preserves. 

:  Spanish  Cigars, 

';  Dun  Fish, 

:  Mustard, 


I ;  Cajrenne, 
: :  Chocolate, 
;  \  Shells, 
• ;  Bird  Seed, 
'.  [Oranges, 
i ;  Lemons, 
:     tic.  See. 


With  a  great  variety  of  other  Loxuries,  Delicacies  and  Necessaries. 

JV*/J5. Frices  tvUl  be  such  as  to  offer  great  inducements  b 

Cll  teho  purchase  v/ilh  CASH. 

4fr«        »«        «♦        ■»-«•        ♦«        ♦♦        *^_.'^^.  I 


>***yf.%.tSr 


postman  brought  a  letter  directed  to  "Silas 
Peirce,  No.  2,  Sears  Buildings,  Elm  Street, 
Boston."  The  writer  of  the  letter  said  that  he 
had  seen  the  card  and  noticed  that  "prices  will 
be  such  as  to  offer  great  inducements  to  all  who 
purchase  with  cash,"  and  as  he  wished  to  pay 
cash  he  asked  what  inducements  would  be  offered. 


An  Early  Advertisement 

Early  in  the  last  century  it  was  not  customary 
for  grocers  to  advertise  their  goods  unless  they  had 
some  specialty  that  could  not  be  found  elsewhere 
in  town.  The  importers  were  more  liberal  in  an- 
nouncing their  wares,  and  if  a  vessel  arrived  with 
spices  or  teas  the  fact  was  advertised  in  the  news- 
papers. One  of  the  first  advertisements  of  the 
founder  of  the  house  that  has  been  discovered  was  in 


'^ 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  25 

the  Columbian  Centinel  of  January  10,   1824,  and 
reads  as  follows: 


Essence  of  Roses 
J.  P.  HALL,  No.  1  Union  Street  and  SILAS  PEIRCE, 
Elm  Street,  Boston,  keep  constantly  for  sale  —  Gould's  real 
ESSENCE  OF  ROSES.  One  bottle  will  make  from  6  to  10 
of  Rose  Water.  Price  50  cents  per  bottle.  Ask  for  Gould's 
real  Essence  of  Roses. 
6  Dec.  1823,  6  m. 


The  First  "Drummer" 

William  Stearns,  a  grocer  who  later  established 
the  present  firm  of  William  Stearns  &  Co.,  was 
taken  into  partnership  by  Mr.  Peirce  in  1826,  and 
six  years  afterwards  withdrew  to  go  into  business 
for  himself,  at  first  as  the  head  of  the  firm  of  Stearns 
&  Crosby.  He  was  a  fine  representative  of  the 
business  man  who  used  to  be  called  "a  merchant 
of  the  old  school."  Born  in  Lunenburg,  Mass., 
he  came  to  Boston  when  quite  young.  Mr. 
Peirce,  an  excellent  judge  of  human  nature, 
saw  that  the  youth  had  good  business  ability  and 
was  just  the  partner  needed  to  help  carry  on 
the  business.  Mr.  Stearns  opened  a  store  on  Chat- 
ham Street,  Boston,  and  in  a  few  years  took  as  a 
partner  James  Dana  Hutchinson,  who  was  in  this 
store  for  over  three-score  years.  The  business 
thus  established  has  been  carried  on  in  the  same 
building  for  eighty-one  years. 

In  a  sales  book  dated  1829,  there  are  numerous 
notes    regarding    the    business.      From    this  it  is 


26  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

learned  that  IVIr.  Stearns  went  to  New  Bedford, 
Lowell,  Salem  and  Portsmouth  frequently.  He 
evidently  acted  as  a  travelling  salesman,  although 
the  custom  of  sending  out  men  to  sell  goods  did  not 
become  common  until  many  years  later. 

The  New  Partners 
After  Mr.  Stearns  had  withdrawn,  Mr.  Peirce 
remained  alone  until  he  took  as  partners  Hayward 
Peirce  Gushing,  a  relative,  and  Thomas  Hall.  In 
searching  the  files  of  the  newspapers  that  were 
published  during  the  early  years  of  Mr.  Peirce's 
business  career,  no  mention  of  his  partners  has 
been  found  until  Mr.  Hall  and  Mr.  Gushing  went 
into  the  firm.  On  Saturday  morning,  October  12, 
1833,  the  Independent  Chronicle  and  Boston  Patriot 
published  the  following: 


Copartnership  Notice 
Silas  Peirce  has  taken  into  copartnership  Mr.  HAYWARD 
P.  GUSHING  and  Mr.  THOMAS  HALL,  and  the  business  will 
hereafter  be  conducted  under  the  firm  of  SHiAS  PEIRCE  &  CO. 
Oct.  8,  1833. 


Hayward  Peirce  Gushing,  son  of  Nathaniel 
Gushing,  Jr.,  and  Jane  Peirce  Gushing,  was  born 
in  Scituate  on  May  3,  1812.  Goming  to  Boston 
he  entered  the  employ  of  Silas  Peirce  in  1826  and 
in  1833  was  admitted,  with  Thomas  Hall,  to  the  firm. 
Mr.  Gushing  was  a  man  of  strong  and  decided 
character  and  did  much  to  make  the  firm  successful, 
for  at  the  time  he  was   taken   as  a  partner   Mr. 


III!      111!     111!      1111     III!      1111     1111  — mr 


mE 


m 


iiir      im     iiif     im     mi    mi    mi    nil     iiii     iiii     im 


Custom  House,  1915 


SILAS  PEIRCE  <fe  CO.  LTD.  27 

Peirce  was  alone  and  the  increase  in  business  made 
it  necessary  for  some  new  blood  to  be  infused 
into  the  concern. 

Mr.  Gushing  was  quick  and  correct  in  his  judg- 
ments. In  purchasing  goods  he  made  up  his  mind 
at  once  whether  or  not  he  wished  them  and  it  was 
rare  that  his  decision  failed  to  be  right.  A  director 
in  several  railroads,  he  was  especially  interested  in 
the  Metropolitan  Street  Railroad,  with  which  he 
was  connected  for  a  long  term,  serving  it  in  various 
official  capacities.  He  was  a  patriotic  man  and 
believed  in  the  Union,  showing  steadfast  loyalty 
and  a  willingness  to  do  everything  in  his  power  to 
uphold  the  government  during  the  darkest  hours  of 
the  Civil  War.  At  one  time  he  made  a  large  pur- 
chase of  an  issue  of  government  bonds  that  was 
not  being  taken  up  as  rapidly  as  the  authorities  at 
Washington  had  hoped.  He  had  put  so  much  money 
into  these  bonds  that  it  led  to  some  conversation 
with  his  business  associates  when  he  remarked,  in 
efiFect,  "If  these  bonds  are  not  worth  anything,  then 
there  is  nothing  that  we  have  that  is  worth  any- 
thing." 

He  died  October  13,  1870.  One  of  his  five  chil- 
dren is  a  successful  physician  and  another  a  well- 
known  lawyer  in  Boston,  where  they  have  practiced 
for  many  years. 

Thomas  Hall,  who  was  admitted  to  the  firm 
with  Mr.  H.  P.  Gushing,  was  born  on  September 
2,  1812,  at  Leominster,  Mass.,  the  son  of  Gershom 


28  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Hall  and  his  wife  Barbara  Gershom.  The  name 
Thomas  went  back  in  the  family  for  several 
generations,  and  it  was  afterwards  borne  by  Mr. 
Hall's  son  and  grandson.  Mr.  Hall  was  a  very 
dignified  and  precise  merchant  of  the  old  school, 
who  remained  in  the  firm  until  1857,  dying  at 
Lynn  in   1879. 

It  is  hard  at  this  distance  of  years  to  do  justice 
to  the  business  acumen  and  ability  of  the  early 
partners  of  the  house.  In  the  case  of  Mr.  Hall  his 
contemporaries  have  all  passed  away  and  there  are 
few  anecdotes  or  incidents  of  his  life  that  have  come 
down  to  the  present  time.  Fortunately  among 
other  records  is  a  letter  that  he  wrote  from  New 
York  on  November  19,  1850,  when  he  went  there  to 
examine  a  cargo  of  raisins  that  had  arrived  from 
Spain  in  a  damaged  condition.  These  raisins  were 
needed  by  the  firm  for  the  Thanksgiving  trade  and 
the  letter  that  Mr.  Hall  sent  back  regarding  them 
and  the  work  that  he  did  with  the  custom  house 
authorities  and  the  insurance  adjusters  give  an  in- 
sight into  his  methods  of  business.  The  firm  had 
in  him  a  man  who  could  grasp  the  details  of  a  trans- 
action and  the  letter  proves  that  he  was  equal  to 
any  task  that  might  be  given  him  in  connection  with 
his  business. 

A  Farmer's  Son 

Silas  Peirce,  2d,  the  son  of  a  farmer,  born  on 
the  Peirce  farm  in  Egypt,  decided  on  a  mercantile 
career  when  eighteen  years  of  age  and  in  1845 
came   to   Boston    and    entered    his    uncle's    store. 


111!      im     mi      1111     1111      nil     mi      iiii 


JUL 


iiif      mi     iiir      III!     III!    nil     iiii    ii![     nil     iiir 


M 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  29 

He  commenced  on  a  salary  of  fifty  dollars  per 
annum,  his  father  furnishing  board  and  clothing  the 
first  year.  Beginning  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder, 
he  mastered  the  details  of  the  business,  and 
showed  marked  ability  as  a  buyer.  He  became 
a  partner  in  1857,  and  was  at  the  head  of  the 
firm  at  the  time  of  his  death,  October  15,  1898. 
For  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  he  was  not 
actively  engaged  in  the  grocery  business,  but 
devoted  his  time  to  the  Boston  National  Bank, 
of  which  he  was  the  president;  the  North  American 
Insurance  Company,  which  he  served  in  the  same 
capacity,  and  various  other  corporations  of  which 
he  was  a  director.  He  was  connected  with  many 
charitable  and  philanthropic  enterprises,  officiating 
as  president  or  treasurer  of  several  benevolent 
organizations.  An  active  participant  in  the  affairs 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  he  served 
on  important  committees  at  conventions  of  that 
body  and  his  advice  in  business  affairs  was  often 
sought  by  his  colleagues. 

In  all  his  religious  and  philanthropic  work  he 
was  ably  assisted  by  his  wife,  a  woman  of  remark- 
able executive  ability,  who  did  everything  possible 
to  make  her  husband's  plans  successful.  For 
years  the  Boston  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  owed  a  great  part  of  its  success  to 
her  energetic  and  untiring  work,  and  after  her 
death  her  place  was  taken  by  her  daughter,  Mrs. 
Edward  H.  Nichols,  whose  husband  became  a 
member  of  the  firm,  who  continued  to  serve  the 


80  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Association    with    the    same    constant    faithfulness 
that  her  mother  had  done. 

Coppers  and  Soap 

One  anecdote  of  Mr.  Peirce  has  been  told  with 
embellishments  for  many  years,  but  it  happened 
exactly  as  related  here  and  is  now  repeated  for 
the  benefit  of  coming  grocers.  Shortly  after  the 
Civil  War,  the  soap  manufacturer,  B.  T.  Babbitt, 
established  a  quantity  price  on  his  soap.  One 
hundred  boxes  could  be  bought  for  so  much, 
two  hundred  for  a  trifle  less  per  box,  and  so  on 
up  to  one  thousand.  One  thousand  was  the 
maximum  number  of  boxes  at  the  minimum  price. 
The  salesman  from  Babbitt's  came  to  Mr.  Peirce, 
and,  anxious  to  make  a  large  sale,  tried  to  induce 
him  to  purchase  a  thousand  boxes.  Ever  ready 
for  a  trade,  the  latter  told  the  salesman  that  he 
would  buy  more  than  a  thousand  boxes  if  the 
right  price  could  be  named.  After  some  talk, 
an  ofifer  was  finally  made  for  twelve  hundred 
boxes  of  the  soap,  to  be  paid  for  largely  in  coppers, 
the  exact  amount  of  these  not  being  designated. 
The  salesman  submitted  the  offer  to  New  York 
and  was  told  to  accept  it.  The  result  was  that 
the  firm  received  the  large  invoice  of  soap  and 
under  Mr.  Peirce's  directions  the  clerks  bought 
up  at  a  discount  all  the  coppers  that  could  be 
obtained  from  the  bakers,  confectioners  and  other 
dealers  who  were  known  to  have  such  money  on 
hand.     A   small   proportion   of   the   bill   was   paid 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  31 

by  check,  and  the  heavy  coins,  packed  in  nail 
kegs  and  in  soap  boxes  securely  strapped,  were 
shipped  by  freight  to  New  York  City.  It  is  a 
matter  of  record  that  the  salesman  never  again 
approached  Mr.  Peirce  with  the  intention  of 
making  a  large  sale. 

One  Street  and  Another 

A  short  record  of  the  places  where  the  early 
partners  lived  from  time  to  time  will  give  some 
idea  of  the  widespread  changes  in  our  city. 
Mention  has  already  been  made  of  Mr.  Peirce's 
residence  in  Derne  Street.  In  1825  he  lived  at 
No.  4,  a  building  now  used  for  tenements.  Five 
years  later  he  moved  to  45  Bowdoin  Street  and 
a  decade  after  that  was  at  3  Montgomery  Place, 
now  Bosworth  Street.  Early  in  the  fifties  he 
built  a  large  house  at  3  Somerset  Street  and 
resided  there  until  his  death.  This  house,  which 
is  now  given  over  to  offices  and  stores,  is,  with 
its  high  stories  and  long  flights  of  stairs,  of  a 
far  different  type  from  modern  dwellings.  But 
it  was  erected  "on  honor"  and  the  workmanship 
was  such  that  the  building  will  last  into  the  next 
century  unless  the  march  of  improvement  changes 
still  more  the  section  in  which  it  stands. 

Mr.  Stearns  lived  on  Belknap  Street  in  1832, 
and  two  years  later  Mr.  H.  P.  Gushing  was 
living  at  101  Washington  Street.  Some  twenty 
years  afterwards  he  moved  to  a  house  numbered 
620  Washington  Street,  almost  opposite  Common 


32  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Street,  and  in  the  same  block  with  Charles 
Sprague,  the  banker-poet.  At  one  time  Thomas 
Hall  lived  on  Wendell  Street,  later  moving  to 
Kingston  Street.  Silas  Peirce,  2d,  boarded  for 
a  time  at  the  Merchants'  Exchange  Hotel  on  State 
Street,  over  the  Merchants'  Exchange  and  Post 
OflBce,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Exchange  Build- 
ing. Later  he  lived  on  Summer  Street  not  far 
from  the  residence  of  Daniel  Webster,  where  the 
present  Silas  Peirce  was  born,  and  then  moved  to 
Franklin  Street.  When  Silas  Peirce,  3d,  was  a 
very  small  boy  the  family  went  to  live  in  Mont- 
gomery Place,  near  the  house  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  and  the  little  lad  often  saw  the  genial 
Autocrat  as  the  latter  came  and  went  on  his 
daily   duties. 

Commercial  Street 

Meanwhile  the  Elm  Street  store,  even  with  the 
additional  building,  was  becoming  too  small  for 
the  growing  business,  and  Mr.  Peirce,  looking 
for  larger  quarters,  decided  that  he  would  continue 
at  the  North  End,  as  near  the  market  as  possible, 
for  the  dealers  in  groceries  and  provisions  would 
naturally  cluster  about  Boston's  famous  market 
house.  In  May,  1855,  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  com- 
pleted the  purchase  of  a  lot  of  the  Mercantile  Wharf 
Association,  although,  curiously  enough,  the  con- 
tracts for  building  were  signed  in  April,  and  during 
the  summer  the  large  block  of  stone  stores  on 
Commercial  Street,  extending  from  Clinton  to  Rich- 


im      nil     1111      111!     mi      iiii     mi      im       iirr 


Present   Location-,  59-61   Commercial  Street,  Boston 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  33 

mond  Streets,  was  erected,  the  Peirce  store  being 
numbered  59  and  61.  A  year  later  the  grocers 
occupied  a  part  of  the  new  building  and  not  long 
afterwards  the  entire  store  was  given  up  to 
their  use.  From  that  day  until  the  present  the 
headquarters  of  the  concern  have  been  at  59 
and  61  Commercial  Street. 

Commercial  Street  sixty  years  ago  was  far 
different  from  what  it  is  now.  The  west  side  of 
the  street  was  occupied  by  buildings  that  had 
been  erected  some  years  before.  The  Mercantile 
Block  was  built  on  made  land  and  a  narrow 
street,  now  called  Mercantile,  separated  the  stores 
from  the  waters  of  the  harbor.  Captains  of  the 
coasters  ran  their  vessels  so  close  to  the  street 
that  often  the  bowsprits  projected  nearly  to  the 
back  door  of  the  Peirce  store.  Later  this  space 
in  the  rear  of  the  block  was  filled  in  with  earth  from 
Fort  Hill,  and  the  land  lay  idle  for  years.  The  firm 
hired  the  newly  made  land  directly  back  of  the  store 
and  built  a  fence  around  it.  In  this  enclosure 
molasses  could  be  kept  excepting  during  the  hottest 
of  the  summer  months. 

The  "Dump" 

The  "dump,"  as  it  was  called,  was  a  popular 
place  for  the  firm's  customers  to  visit,  as  a  buyer 
who  wished  to  lay  in  his  year's  stock  of  molasses 
had  only  to  step  across  the  street  to  find  himself 
in  a  large  yard,  with  the  hogsheads  and  tierces 
and  barrels  arranged  neatly  in  tiers,  so  that  he 


A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


could  make  his  selection  with  little  trouble. 
Afterwards  the  "dump"  became  too  valuable  a 
piece  of  Boston  real  estate  to  be  used  for  the 
storage  of  molasses.  The  farmers  wanted  some 
open  place  in  which  to  dispose  of  their  produce 
and  for  a  time  the  land  was  used  for  a  farmers' 
market.  The  idea  of  an  open  air  market  even  a 
few  rods  away  from  the  great  market,  was  com- 
bated by  many  of  the  raisers  of  produce  who 
drove  in  with  their  own  teams  and  wished  to 
establish  themselves  next  Faneuil  Hall  Market 
itself.  In  the  end,  the  farmers  and  others  who 
came  to  sell  their  wares  from  their  wagons  were 
established  on  South  Market  Street  and  the 
"dump"  was  built  over,  so  that  what  was  a 
part  of  Boston  Harbor  three-score  years  ago,  is 
now  covered  with  an  extensive  meat  market. 
Near  by  is  the  produce  district  of  the  city,  with 
the  buildings  in  which  dealers  in  potatoes  and 
other  vegetables  house  their  wares.  The  land 
on  which  the  store  stands  is  becoming  as  solid 
as  the  street  in  front  of  the  building,  but  for 
many  years  the  cellar  was  always  overflowed 
at  the  highest  tides.  Only  the  heroic  treatment 
of  emptying  eight  hundred  loads  of  dirt  and 
gravel  into  the  cellar  at  one  time  made  it  watertight. 

Death  of  Silas  Peirce,  1st 

Silas  Peirce,  1st,  died  at  his  residence,  3  Somer- 
set Street,  at  six  o'clock  on  Wednesday  evening, 
August  27,  1879,  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty- 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  35 

six  years  and  six  months.  Few  men  rise  by  their 
own  efforts  from  the  small  beginnings  which 
marked  his  entrance  into  business  life  to  such 
places  of  prominence  in  the  community.  He  had 
inborn  the  Yankee  characteristics  of  thrift,  shrewd- 
ness and  good  common-sense.  For  years  he 
declined  public  office,  but  in  1857  he  consented 
to  run  for  alderman  and  was  elected,  serving  the 
city  of  Boston  in  that  capacity  for  six  years, 
during  one  of  which  he  acted  as  Chairman  of 
the  Board.  One  of  his  associates  among  the 
aldermen  said  that  Mr.  Peirce  was  known  as  the 
"Watch  Dog  of  the  Treasury"  and  that  no 
schemes  to  use  the  public  money  extravagantly 
were  ever  successful  while  he  was  on  the  Board. 
It  was  during  his  term  of  service  that  many 
plans  were  made  for  improving  the  North  End, 
but  the  Civil  War  changed  all  these  and  improve- 
ments that  had  been  contemplated  for  years 
were  at  last  given  up  on  account  of  conditions 
caused  by  the  strife. 

Mr.  Peirce's  municipal  services  were  charac- 
terized by  the  sound  judgment,  independence  and 
tact  that  had  made  his  career  as  a  merchant 
successful.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  had  been 
retired  for  years  and  many  of  his  former  business 
associates  had  passed  away.  Yet  he  was  pleas- 
antly remembered  by  those  who  were  left  and 
one  of  them  told  the  story,  that  was  later  cor- 
roborated, of  a  meeting  of  the  directors  of  an 
insurance    company    after    the    great    fire    in    this 


36  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

city.  Mr.  Peirce  was  one  of  these  directors,  and 
the  question  arose  as  to  what  should  be  done 
with  the  stock  of  the  company.  It  looked  as 
if  the  stock  would  be  entirely  wiped  out  unless 
some  move  were  made  for  the  benefit  of  the 
smaller  stockholders.  Mr.  Peirce  offered  at  once 
to  give  up  his  holdings,  amounting  to  more  than 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  by  so  doing  something 
might  be  saved  for  the  small  shareholders.  The 
idea  staggered  the  other  directors  and  the  move 
was  not  carried  out,  but  as  the  narrator  of  the 
story  states,  the  aged  grocer  offered  to  give  up 
fifty  thousand  dollars  as  readily  as  if  it  had  been 
fifty  cents. 

Other  Partners 

A  lad  from  New  York  that  found  work  with  the 
firm  was  Charles  E.  Moody,  who  after  some  years, 
in  1857,  was  admitted  to  partnership.  He  was 
much  interested  in  shipping,  and  at  one  time  owned 
shares  in  many  vessels.  In  1868  he  established  the 
successful  firm  of  Charles  E.  Moody  &  Company. 
Associated  with  him  in  business  were  a  number  of 
his  relatives,  and  at  the  present  time,  Charles  H. 
Goodridge,  a  grand-nephew,  is  in  the  firm. 

Mr.  Moody  died  in  Detroit,  Mich.,  in  1893.  He 
had  been  at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago  and  was 
taken  ill,  dying  while  on  his  way  home. 

It  was  in  May,  1840,  that  J.  Hamilton  Farrar 
entered  the  employ  of  the  firm.     At  the  age  of  four- 


William  Stearns 
1826-1832 


Thomas   Hall 

uiin ,„M,M|,)     1833 -1857 


Hay  ward  P.  Cushind 
^1833  -  1863  ^ 


Nathan  Cushin^ 
1863  -  1871       * 


■l""iiiiniiiiimiiiiini!iiiniiii,  ,hii 


Charles  E.  Moody 


J.Hamilton  Farrar 
1&63-I8/6 


A .  M  o  re  to  n  Swa  1 1  ovv 

1871  -  1890 


' nMmiiiiiimiMii  iiiiiiiiiiimiiiiTTTTr 


jormer   Part 


Edward  H.Nichols 
1876  -  1900 


ners 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  37 

teen  he  had  gone  to  work  for  Lemuel  A.  Cooledge, 
the  grandfather  of  F.  Loring  Wheeler  of  the  present 
concern.  Mr.  Cooledge  kept  one  of  the  principal 
retail  grocery  stores  in  Boston,  situated  on  the  cor- 
ner of  Essex  and  Washington  Streets,  where  Bacon's 
store  now  stands.  Mr.  Farrar  remained  with  Mr. 
Cooledge  until  he  had  become  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  retail  business,  for  his  employer  had  prom- 
ised that  in  time  he  would  get  the  lad  a  position  in  a 
wholesale  grocery.  Six  years  later  the  young  man 
began  his  career  as  a  wholesaler  with  the  Peirce 
firm  on  Elm  Street.  In  1863  he  was  admitted  to 
partnership,  retiring  after  thirteen  years.  His  death 
removed  the  last  partner  who  had  been  connected 
with  the  first  Silas  Peirce. 

Mr.  Farrar  was  a  director  in  a  number  of  railroad 
companies  and  was  actively  interested  in  several 
philanthropies,  serving  for  many  years  as  the  treas- 
urer of  the  North  End  Mission.  He  was  born  on 
the  last  day  of  the  year  1820  and  died  on  February 
17,  1906. 

An  Old-Time  Grocer 

Mr.  H.  P.  Cushing's  brother  Nathan,  his  junior 
by  two  years,  was  a  grocer  on  Commercial  Street 
almost  opposite  the  Peirce  store,  where  for  years 
he  had  been  at  the  head  of  the  firm  of  Cushing 
&  Clapp.  This  concern  did  a  large  business  with 
Maine  and  with  the  British  provinces,  especially 
with  Prince  Edward  Island,  sending  annually 
to  that  island  goods   worth  thousands   and  thou- 


38  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

sands  of  dollars.  It  was  noted  that  after  the 
introduction  of  railroads  they  were  of  little  use 
to  Mr.  Nathan  Gushing,  as  he  shipped  nearly 
all  the  goods  he  sold  by  schooners.  This  concern, 
which  had  been  dealing  extensively  with  Silas  Peirce 
&  Co.  for  years,  was  dissolved  and  in  1863  Mr. 
Gushing  became  the  head  of  the  older  house,  retir- 
ing eight  years  later.  He  was  a  man  of  marked 
characteristics,  well  informed  on  a  great  variety 
of  subjects  and  an  omnivorous  reader,  especially 
of  works  of  natural  science  and  history.  Many  of 
the  younger  men  in  the  store  stood  in  awe  of  him, 
but  as  a  boy,  I  was  brought  by  a  fortunate  chance 
to  his  notice,  so  that  we  became  friends  in 
spite  of  the  great  difference  in  years.  The 
chance  that  brought  us  together  was  this:  One 
day  Mr.  Gushing  was  arguing  with  a  visitor  and  to 
enforce  his  argument  wished  to  quote  from  Edmund 
Burke.  He  had  Burke's  idea  but  could  not  think 
of  the  exact  words.  Turning  around,  he  said, 
"Young  man,  you  ought  to  know  what  Burke 
said  on  that  occasion.  Don't  you  remember  his 
words?" 

Memories  of  numerous  school  recitations  brought 
back  Burke's  speech  and  the  retired  merchant  was 
greatly  pleased,  as  the  exact  quotation  fitted  what 
he  wished  to  say.  Sometime  later  it  developed 
that  Mr.  Gushing  was  well  read  in  the  works  of 
Emerson,  Theodore  Parker  and  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  three  writers  who  were  favorites  of  the 
boy    who    had    furnished    the    Burke    quotation. 


S.P.  MOORHOUSE,  HENRY  J.  U'^ILSON         CHARLES  W  TUCKER 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  39 

Indeed,  while  Mr.  Gushing  was  reading  "Over 
the  Teacups"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  he  often 
spoke  of  them  and  recommended  them  as  good 
reading. 

Reminiscences  of  Nathan  Gushing 

Mr.  Gushing  read  the  Boston  Advertiser  from 
beginning  to  end  every  morning,  and  at  night 
studied  the  Transcript.  One  year  there  was  a 
bill  before  the  legislature  to  which  he  was  strongly 
opposed,  and  he  requested  me  to  send  letters 
to  the  Advertiser  and  Transcript  against  the  bill. 
This  was  not  at  all  agreeable  as  the  bill  seemed 
a  desirable  one,  but  Mr.  Gushing,  in  his  authorita- 
tive way,  said:  "Young  man,  a  good  lawyer  can 
always  see  both  sides  of  a  case."  The  result 
was  that  for  the  next  few  weeks  every  point  that 
could  be  found  against  the  bill  was  diligently 
studied  and  letters  sent  to  the  Advertiser  and 
Transcript  which,  much  to  Mr.  Gushing's  delight, 
contained  arguments  that  were  never  refuted. 
He  was  a  man  of  few  words  and  little  was  said 
about  the  matter  until  nearly  a  year  after  my 
marriage.  Then  Mr.  Gushing,  pulling  a  good- 
sized  bill  out  of  his  pocket,  said:  "I  have  always 
intended  to  make  you  a  wedding  present,  for  I 
have  not  forgotten  how  hard  you  argued  against 
your  convictions  on  that  legislative  bill.  Probably 
you  will  want  to  buy  some  books.  Get  what 
you  want." 


40  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

The  Family  Circle 

While  Mr.  Gushing  in  his  later  years  was  not  a 
theatre-goer,  he  had  formerly  taken  an  interest  in 
plays  and  players  and  was  well  read  in  Shakespeare. 
At  one  time  he  boarded  at  the  New  England  House, 
a  noted  hostelry,  still  standing,  which  was  patronized 
by  city  as  well  as  country  merchants.  There  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Walter  M.  Leman,  a  cul- 
tured, educated  actor,  who  later  went  to  California, 
was  made  the  judge  of  a  local  court  and  was  much  in 
demand  as  orator  and  poet  for  special  occasions.  Mr. 
Leman  would  return  from  the  theatre  after  the  per- 
formance and  sit  with  Mr.  Cushing  discussing  Shake- 
speare's plays  until  the  small  hours  of  the  morning, 
for  the  merchant  was  never  one  who  retired  early. 

When  the  present  Boston  Theatre  was  opened,  it 
was  intended  as  an  attraction  for  the  buyers  from  the 
south  and  west  who  visited  the  city,  and  Mr.  Cush- 
ing, believing  that  the  new  house  might  aid  in  Bos- 
ton's commercial  development,  invited  one  of  his 
customers  to  go  with  him  to  this  theatre  a  few  days 
after  it  had  been  dedicated.  The  nomenclature  of 
the  various  sections  of  the  house  was  new  to  theatre- 
goers here  and  when  the  ticket-seller  glibly  rattled 
off  the  strange  names  Mr.  Cushing's  ear  caught  the 
words  "family  circle"  and  he  said  that  he  would 
take  two  seats  there. 

When  he  arrived  at  the  family  circle  with  his 
guest,  he  found  he  had  made  a  mistake,  but  as 
the  play  was  beginning  and  the  view  of  the  stage 
was  good,  the  two  men  decided  to  remain.    Soon 


COLON  S.  OBER. 


.^ 


CARL  A.  PERKINS 


CHARLES  F.  PARKER 


JOHN  F.  KEARNS,  JR. 


JjostonStore 
Salesmen 


DANIEL  p.  JEWETT 


A 
A 


THOMAS  C.GARDINER  WILLIAM  B. MCCLINTOCK 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  41 

in  one  of  the  quiet  speeches  a  baby  near  them, 
that  had  been  smuggled  past  the  doorkeeper  by  its 
mother,  began  to  cry,  and  at  the  first  sounds  of 
"Hush!  hush!"  from  the  auditors,  the  mother  ad- 
justed her  dress  and  began  to  nurse  the  infant.  At 
this  there  were  more  exclamations  and  one  man 
grumbled  loudly  at  such  an  exhibition,  as  he  said 
that  the  woman  should  be  ashamed  for  nursing  her 
child  so  publicly.  The  man  continued  to  grumble 
until  his  neighbors  were  much  disturbed  and  efforts 
were  made  to  keep  him  quiet.  At  last  Mr.  Gushing 
turned  to  the  disturber  and  said  in  a  dignified  man- 
ner: "My  dear  sir,  why  should  not  the  mother  nurse 
her  child  here?  Certainly  there  is  no  more  proper 
place  for  such  an  act  than  the  family  circle."  The 
man  joined  in  the  laugh  against  himself,  and  mother 
and  babe  were  left  in  peace. 

Up  to  a  short  time  before  his  death  Mr.  Gushing 
came  to  the  store  regularly,  excepting  during  the 
hottest  days  of  summer.  For  many  years  his  advice 
was  sought  eagerly  by  the  buyers,  as  he  had  a 
remarkably  extensive  knowledge  of  merchandise.  It  is 
seldom  that  a  man  who  is  an  expert  on  teas  and  cof- 
fees is  fitted  also  to  pass  on  the  quality  of  all  other 
kinds  of  groceries,  but  whatever  was  brought  to  Mr. 
Gushing's  attention  was  judged  with  a  nicety  that 
made  him  famous  among  the  brokers,  who  were  always 
anxious  to  obtain  from  him  a  good  opinion  of  their 
wares,  knowing  that  if  he  said  that  an  article  had 
merit,  there  was  slight  chance  of  any  one's  ability  to 
prove  otherwise. 


42  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Mr.  Swallow's  Accident 
A.  MoRETON  Swallow  was  born  in  Nashua,  N.  H., 
and  educated  at  Townsend  Academy.  His  grand- 
mother was  Lucy  Emerson,  a  cousin  ©f  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  It  was  not  until  he  had  passed 
his  majority  that  he  came  to  Boston  and  entered 
upon  a  mercantile  career  here.  He  was  on  Elm 
Street  for  several  years  with  J.  Blanchard  &  Son,  a 
firm  that  changed  its  name  several  times  during  its 
existence.  In  1868  he  became  a  salesman  for  Silas 
Peirce  &  Co.,  and  three  years  later,  when  Fitzroy 
Kelly  was  admitted  to  the  firm,  Mr.  Swallow  also 
was  made  a  partner.  He  remained  with  the  concern 
until  1890  when  he  retired,  at  that  time  being  the 
oldest  member  of  the  firm.  After  his  retirement  he 
lived  quietly  at  Quincy,  Mass.,  near  the  homes 
of  two  of  the  former  presidents  of  the  United  States, 
John  Adams  and  John  Quincy  Adams,  until  his  death 
in  1901.  Many  of  the  old  customers  of  the  house 
will  recall  the  severe  accident  that  befell  him  a 
few  years  before  his  retirement,  when  his  head  was 
crushed  by  a  descending  freight  elevator.  Miracu- 
lously he  escaped  permanent  injury  but  was  confined 
to  his  bed  for  many  weeks.  He  was  genial,  always 
courteous  and  smiling,  and  something  of  a  philosopher. 
At  the  time  of  the  accident  he  was  questioned  closely 
as  to  the  manner  of  its  occurrence  and  if  he  became 
insensible.  His  reply  was:  "No,  I  knew  everything 
that  happened  and  the  only  thought  that  came  to  me 
and  that  kept  repeating  itself  in  my  mind,  was, 
*  What  a  fool  I  was  to  be  so  careless !' " 


RAYMOND  HALL 


A 

A 


PERCY  E  CHARLES 


MERVILLE   R.BARKLEV  FRANCIS  W.B.SCOTT 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  43 

Edward  H.  Nichols  entered  the  employ  of  the 
firm  on  January  7,  1868.  The  son  of  William 
Nichols,  for  twenty-five  years  the  principal  retail 
grocer  of  Lowell,  he  graduated  from  the  public 
schools  of  that  city  and  obtained  a  position  as 
page  at  the  State  House  under  Sergeant-at-Arms 
Morrissey.  Always  pleasant  and  courteous,  the 
lad  soon  made  friends  with  many  of  the  legisla- 
tors. These  friendships  he  kept  throughout  his 
life,  and  legislators  who  became  figures  of  national 
importance  were  always  willing  to  serve  him  in 
every  way. 

In  1859,  while  he  was  a  page,  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
afterwards  King  Edward  VII,  visited  the  State 
House  and  was  presented  with  an  old  firearm  that 
had  a  special  history.  The  boy  was  bright  and 
attractive  and  was  chosen  to  hand  the  weapon  to 
the  one  who  made  the  presentation  speech.  The 
papers  of  the  day  had  much  to  say  of  the  comely 
lad  who  assisted  at  the  ceremony. 

He  saw  the  sea-fight  between  the  Monitor  and 
the  Merrimac,  when  he  was  acting  as  clerk  in 
the  Post  OflBce  at  Fortress  Monroe,  Virginia. 
After  the  Civil  War  he  joined  a  group  of  Ohio 
prospectors  who  were  seeking  oil  in  Canada. 
Returning  to  this  city  he  went  to  work  in  1868 
for  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.,  and  on  January  1,  1876, 
was  admitted  to  the  firm,  retiring  in  1900. 
His  wife  was  a  daughter  of  Silas  Peirce,  2d,  and 
was  much  interested  in  benevolent  and  philan- 
thropic work. 


44  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Seventy-five  Years  Young 

On  April  1,  1890,  the  firm  celebrated  its  seventy- 
fifth  anniversary  by  a  dinner  at  Young's  Hotel. 
Attention  had  not  been  called  to  the  affair  in 
advance,  and  the  guests,  including  a  few  prominent 
men  who  were  friends  of  the  first  Silas  Peirce, 
and  the  reporters,  were  the  only  ones  who  knew 
of  the  dinner.  The  Boston  papers  gave  long 
accounts  of  it,  and  a  few  weeks  later  a  veteran 
journalist  said  that  hundreds  of  dollars  could  not 
have  purchased  the  space  that  the  press  of  the 
country  gave  to  this  remarkable  event,  for  there 
were  few  newspapers  from  Maine  to  California 
that  did  not  comment  on  the  unusual  fact  that 
a  firm  in  this  country  had  retained  the  same 
name  for  three-quarters  of  a  century,  with  one 
of  the  name  always  taking  an  active  part  in  the 
business. 

What  the  Editors  Said 

The  New  York  Sun,  ever  ready  to  say  a  few 
words  about  Boston,  took  as  its  text  for  a  long 
editorial,  "The  Peirces,  Grocers,"  which  began 
as  follows: 

"When  the  old-line  pepper  and  salt  Bostonians, 
who  are  not  ashamed  to  wear  chin  whiskers  or 
to  call  for  beans  when  there  is  a  crowd  present, 
want  to  have  a  high  old  time  and  to  keep  the 
Hub  revolving  fast  and  furious,  they  have  a 
dinner  at  Young's  Hotel,  and  a  mighty  fine  event 
they  generally  make  of  it,  too.     The  most  recent 


INGRAHAM  B.  R^'DER         JOHN  J.  SCOTT  THOMAS  HENDERSON 


FRANK  G.  SPARHAWK 


iiiniiiiiiiiiniiMMiniiniiiiiiiMiiumiin 


JOSEPH  J.RODOLPH 


GEORGE  HENDERSON 


FRED  W  GRIFFIN 


MAURICE  F.FITZGERALD 


THATCHER  B.STREETER 


EDWARD  S.DEARMOND 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  45 

celebration  of  the  kind  was  given  in  honor  of 
Silas  Peirce,  who,  it  is  averred,  enjoyed  the 
distinction  of  being  at  the  head  of  the  oldest 
grocery  firm,  not  only  in  New  England,  but  in 
the  United  States." 

The  New  York  paper  was  not  the  only  one 
to  say  editorially  pleasant  words  of  the  celebra- 
tion. The  Boston  Transcript's  editor  thus  referred 
to  the  dinner: 

"Seventy-five  years  is  a  good  old  age,  and  is 
indicative  of  a  strong  constitution  or  a  strong 
character,  or  both,  in  an  individual.  In  this 
country,  where  business  changes  are  so  frequent, 
the  house  that  attains  its  seventy-fifth  birthday 
may  well  be  congratulated  on  its  years  and  honors. 
Such  an  anniversary  has  more  than  a  personal 
interest,  where,  as  in  the  case  of  Silas  Peirce  & 
Co.,  the  record  of  the  firm  is  that  of  a  long 
career  of  probity  and  industry  which  have  reaped 
rich  rewards.  It  is  an  object  lesson  which,  in 
these  days  when  so  many  young  men  are  tempted 
to  make  short  cuts  to  wealth,  though  the  path  to 
riches  is  only  to  be  successfully  travelled  by  the 
patient  and  industrious,  we  feel  sure  cannot  be 
too  plainly  presented.  A  business  career  of 
seventy-five  years  is  a  history  of  itself,  and  is 
suggestive  of  history,  for  the  founder  of  the  firm 
was  in  business  for  himself  when  James  Madison 
was  President,  and  very  likely  in  common  with 
other  merchants  of  the  time  anxiously  awaited 
the   tidings   of   Napoleon's   campaign   in   Belgium, 


46  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

and  received  the  news  of  Waterloo  as  a  matter 
of  great  moment  to  the  trade  of  the  United 
States." 

The  Boston  Traveler  was  much  interested  in 
the  business  relations  of  the  house  with  some  of 
the  older  American  mercantile  establishments, 
and  on  the  day  after  the  dinner  gave  this  item 
a  place  on  the  editorial  page,  heading  it,  "A 
Mercantile  Coincidence": 

"A  fact  growing  out  of  the  dinner  given  by 
Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  to  their  employees  and  friends 
last  evening  is  the  following:  The  books  of  Pierre 
Lorillard  &  Co.,  the  oldest  tobacconist  firm  in 
the  country,  established  in  1760,  show  an  open 
account  with  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  as  far  back  as 
1826.  As  the  Lorillard  &  Co.  have  retained  the 
same  firm  name,  as  well  as  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.,  this  is 
probably  as  old  an  account  between  two  American 
houses  without  change  of  name  as  can  be  found." 

A  Lawyer's  Reminiscences 

William  L.  Foster,  a  well-known  lawyer  of 
Concord,  N.  H.,  sent  a  letter  in  regard  to  the 
anniversary  that  embodies  so  much  information 
as  to  the  early  days  of  the  firm  from  one  who 
was  acquainted  with  its  members,  that  it  is  here 
given  in  full. 

"My  'reminiscences'  of  the  firm  of  Silas  Peirce 
relate  to  a  period  when  the  firm  had  reached 
its  majority  and  was  about  thirty  years  of  age. 
Those    recollections    are    fresh    and    pleasant,    but 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  47 

they  have  nothing  of  'anecdote'  connected  with 
them,  and  nothing  of  special  incident. 

"My  memory  especially  recalls  the  uniform 
kindness  and  gentlemanly  courtesy  and  con- 
sideration which  the  firm  of  that  day  extended 
to  a  raw  and  inexperienced  youth. 

**My  acquaintance  with  the  firm  was  made 
about  1844,  when  I  was  engaged  in  trying  to 
learn  the  rudiments  of  law  in  the  Harvard  Law 
School  of  Cambridge,  under  such  teachers  as 
the  ever  sunny  and  cheerful  (I  had  almost  said 
jolly)  Judge  Story,  and  the  sharp,  shrewd,  critical 
—  the  sly  and  crafty  (in  no  bad  sense)  —  Pro- 
fessor Greenleaf .  We  used  to  call  him  '  Crafty 
Simon.' 

"I  lived  in  Keene,  N.  H.,  with  my  father,  who 
kept  a  grocery  store  there,  and  whom  I  assisted 
as  his  clerk  in  my  vacations.  He  used  to  go  to 
Boston  three  or  four  times  a  year,  to  buy  gro- 
ceries, etc.,  and  most  of  his  trading  was  with 
your  firm. 

"When  I  went  with  him  from  Keene,  we  used 
to  take  the  stage  coach  (sometimes,  I  guess,  with 
B.  P.  Cheney  for  driver)  about  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  we  would  drive  into  the  stable 
yard  at  No.  11  Elm  Street  (Wildes'),  about 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  In  the  summer 
this  was  about  the  time  when  the  watchmen 
carrying  a  little  ladder  under  their  arms,  were 
going  about  lighting  the  street  lamps  filled  with 
fish   oil. 


48  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

"While  I  was  at  Cambridge,  my  father  would 
occasionally  send  me  a  letter  containing  a  list 
of  goods  which  he  wanted,  and  I  would  go  to 
your  store  in  Elm  Street  and  bargain  for  them. 
I  would  examine  critically  the  samples  of  sugar, 
molasses,  tea,  coffee,  etc.,  and  would  sometimes 
make  a  purchase  so  extensive  as  to  amount  to 
perhaps  $40  or  $50  —  a  big  sum  for  me  in  those 
days.  I  heard  nothing  about  a  'sugar  trust,' 
but  I  knew  I  used  to  get  trusted  for  sugar.  Mr. 
Peirce,  Mr.  Gushing  and  Mr.  Hall  were,  one  or 
all  of  them,  in  personal  attendance,  waiting 
upon  customers,  and  Mr.  Crane  kept  the  books 
in  a  little  seven  by  nine  office  fronting  on  Elm 
Street.  I  remember  distinctly  every  line  and 
expression  of  the  countenances  of  these  four  men, 
and  I  recall  the  handsome,  bold  chirography  of 
H.  N.  Crane  (written  with  his  quill  pen),  and 
which   I   should   recognize   and   swear   to,   today." 

Mr.  Crane,  the  bookkeeper,  was  named  for 
the  famous  British  Admiral,  Horatio  Nelson. 
In  the  seven  by  nine  office  that  Mr.  Foster 
mentions,  the  bookkeeper  walked  back  and  forth 
in  front  of  his  desk  day  after  day  for  many 
years.  Tradition  says  that  on  one  occasion, 
when  members  of  the  firm  were  in  the  cellar 
inspecting  some  merchandise  stored  there,  Mr. 
Crane  suddenly  descended  upon  them  feet  first, 
much  to  their  consternation.  The  board  on 
which  he  stood  had  been  worn  so  thin  that  at 
last    it    had    given    way.     Years    afterwards    Mr. 


111!      nil      111!      111!     III!      III!     1111      nil       111!       111! ITTT 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  49 

Crane's  grandson  entered  the  employ  of  the  firm 
and  remained  with  it  for  several  years. 

Down  the  Harbor 

During  the  celebration  of  Merchants'  Week  in 
1888,  the  firm  entertained  its  customers  in  a 
novel  manner  long  remembered  by  those  who  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  extended  to  every  one  who 
had  purchased  goods  of  the  house  within  two  years. 
On  May  16  a  steamer  of  the  Nantasket  Line  was 
chartered  and  eight  hundred  customers  enjoyed  a 
trip  down  the  harbor.  A  band  of  music  and  a 
bounteous  lunch  pleased  the  guests,  and  when  the 
steamer  docked  late  in  the  afternoon  the  large 
gathering  from  all  parts  of  New  England  had 
learned  more  about  the  harbor  than  many  of  those 
present  had  ever  known  before.  For  a  long  time  it 
was  a  favorite  jest  of  the  drummers  of  rival  houses 
to  ask  customers  if  they  were  buying  goods  now  of 
Silas  Peirce  &  Co.,  so  as  to  get  an  invitation  to  the 
harbor  excursion.  For  months  after  the  harbor  trip 
the  firm  continued  to  receive  letters  from  gratified 
customers.  In  several  instances  these  letters  stated 
that  the  writers  had  never  before  seen  the  salt  water. 

John  Jones,  Jr.,  Skowhegan,  Maine 

As  in  every  store  that  employs  a  number  of 
clerks,  the  firm  had  from  time  to  time  men  who 
form  picturesque  and  fantastic  figures  on  the 
background  of  memory.  One  of  these  was  a 
tall,    raw-boned    Down-Easter,    John    Jones,    Jr., 


50  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

by  name,  of  Skowhegan,  Me.,  who  stood  nearly 
six  feet  six  in  his  stockings  and  was  blessed  with 
a  wife  that  was  considerably  under  five  feet  in 
height.  Jones,  a  typical  Yankee,  had  a  striking 
personality  and  first  came  to  the  attention  of 
the  men  in  the  store  from  his  reply  to  the  cashier. 
The  latter  had  on  hand  a  large  number  of  silver 
dollars  and  when  the  men  went  to  the  office  for 
their  pay  on  Saturday  night,  he  would  ask:  "Can't 
you  use  a  few  dollars  in  silver?"  Jones  was  a 
new  man  and  the  cashier,  not  dreaming  of  a 
refusal,  passed  over  the  larger  part  of  the  weekly 
wages  in  the  cumbersome  coins.  Jones  quietly 
passed  them  back  with  the  remark:  "Thank  you, 
I  don't  care  for  these;  my  sidewalk's  paved." 
He  was  an  original  character  with  a  ready  wit 
that  made  him  known  not  only  to  the  clerks 
in  the  other  stores,  but  also  to  the  salesmen  from 
distant  cities  who  came  to  sell  goods  to  the  firm. 
Returning  to  his  native  town  he  lost  one  arm 
and  a  part  of  his  other  hand  by  the  premature 
explosion  of  a  cannon  while  celebrating  the 
election  of  Grover  Cleveland  as  President.  It 
became  the  writer's  duty  to  appeal  in  his  behalf 
not  only  to  the  grocers  but  to  outsiders.  Curiously 
enough,  the  name  John  Jones,  Jr.,  of  Skowhegan, 
Me.,  was  a  handicap,  as  many  considered  it  an 
alias.  Indeed,  one  savings  bank  in  Boston  refused 
to  accept  a  deposit  in  his  favor  until  assurances 
were  given  that  John  Jones,  Jr.,  of  Skowhegan, 
Me.,  was  a  real  person. 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  51 

Shipper  and  Bookkeeper 
Among  those  who  saw  long  service  with  the  house 
and  who  will  be  recalled  by  customers  of  a  former 
generation  were  George  S.  Richardson  and  Charles 
W.  Dodge.  Young  Richardson  was  universally 
known  as  "Chub,"  a  curious  corruption  of  Sherwin, 
his  middle  name.  He  began  when  a  little  boy  to 
ride  to  the  store  on  one  of  the  teams  and  on  Satur- 
day afternoons  would  try  and  help  the  men.  While 
still  very  young  he  was  taken  into  the  store  and  in 
time  rose  to  be  a  shipper.  He  died  at  an  early  age, 
leaving  a  wife  and  baby.  His  memory  has  been  a 
pleasant  one  to  the  older  employees  and  customers. 
The  loss  of  Mr.  Dodge,  a  bookkeeper,  was  severely 
felt.  The  tragedy  of  his  death  is  one  of  the  saddest 
events  in  the  history  of  the  house.  He  was  always 
interested  in  gunning  and  every  year  spent  his  va- 
cation on  the  North  Shore,  where  he  was  well 
known  for  his  success  as  a  sportsman.  After  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Dodge,  he  decided  to  get  away  from 
the  familiar  places  for  a  time  and  made  preparations 
for  an  extended  gunning  trip,  trusting  that  the  change 
of  scene  would  be  beneficial.  He  went  to  the  Bos- 
ton &  Maine  Railroad  station  to  take  a  late  after- 
noon train  and  shortly  afterwards  his  body  was 
found  on  the  tracks.  The  cause  of  his  death  re- 
mained a  mystery  for  twenty-four  hours  and  then  a 
passenger  on  one  of  the  outgoing  trains  who  had 
read  an  account  of  the  accident  in  the  papers,  wrote 
to  the  Boston  Journal  that  he  had  seen  the  accident 
the  day  before.     He  stated  that  a  man  was  walking 


52  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

up  and  down  the  platform,  apparently  waiting  for 
his  train  to  be  made  up,  when  a  train  came  in  on  a 
"flying  switch"  and  struck  the  edge  of  a  trunk  that 
projected  from  a  pile  of  baggage  on  a  truck.  The 
trunk,  whirled  through  the  air  by  the  force  of  the 
blow,  struck  the  man  in  the  throat,  and  just  as  the 
passenger  saw  him  fall,  the  spectator's  train  started 
from  the  station.  It  proves  how  difficult  it  is  to 
fix  the  responsibility  for  accidents  and  crime  when  a 
traveller  can  be  killed  outright  in  a  station  filled 
with  people  and  the  mystery  of  his  death  solved 
only  by  the  merest  chance. 

Early  Bookkeeping 

A  few  of  the  old  books  of  the  concern  are 
preserved  from  the  days  when  the  grocer  worked 
sixteen  hours  on  with  eight  off  for  sleep,  and 
when  the  only  holidays  for  the  clerks  were  Fast 
Day  and  Thanksgiving.  In  one  of  these  early 
books  are  entries  that  exhibit  the  humors  of 
bookkeeping  —  or  rather  of  petty  cash.  "  Cleaning 
streets,  20  cents"  is  one  entry,  and  the  question 
has  been  often  raised  as  to  the  amount  of  work 
that  the  street  cleaners  did  for  two  dimes.  Other 
entries  show  that  on  March  23  the  concern  pur- 
chased "one  cat,  25  cents;  March  24,  one  do., 
25  cents;  April  1,  one  rat  trap,  88  cents." 
Evidently  rats  were  as  numerous  in  a  grocery 
store  then  as  now,  and  the  two  expensive  cats, 
after  a  week  of  trial,  were  discarded  and  a  good 
stout  rat  trap  set  to  do  the  work. 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  53 

In  another  book  used  in  1821,  at  a  time  that 
Mr.  Peirce  carried  on  some  retail  as  well  as 
wholesale  business,  are  the  names  of  many  of  the 
first  families  of  Boston,  including  those  of  J. 
Putnam  Bradlee,  Abel  Adams,  and  Francis  Park- 
man,  D.D.,  father  of  the  historian.  This  old 
book  has  delighted  scores  of  antiquarians.  It  is 
a  model  of  neatness  and  exactness,  and  every 
entry  was  made  with  a  quill  pen.  Some  of  the 
charges  are  interesting  as  showing  the  extraordi- 
nary prices  of  nearly  a  century  ago,  such  as  cur- 
rants at  22  cents  per  pound,  figs  at  4  cents  per 
pound,  whole  allspice  at  33^  cents  per  pound, 
and  nutmegs  at  $1.90  per  pound.  Cigars  were 
$2  per  thousand,  while  the  same  number  of 
cheroots  cost  25  cents  more. 

Fire  and  Frost 

One  cold  day  in  January,  1886,  when  the 
mercury  was  far  below  the  freezing  point,  a  clerk 
in  a  butter  and  eggs  store  at  the  corner  of  Clinton 
Street  and  Quincy  Row,  opposite  the  back  doors 
of  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.,  at  1  and  3  Mercantile 
Street,  while  lighting  eggs,  dropped  the  candle 
into  a  crate  of  straw.  In  an  instant  there  was 
a  blaze  which  he  tried  to  smother  with  blankets, 
snatched  from  the  horses  that  were  shivering  in 
front  of  the  store,  but  the  fire  was  too  quick 
for  him  and  he  found  it  impossible  to  extinguish 
it.  Soon  the  department  was  called  and  the 
alarms  were  rung  in  rapidly  until  all  the  available 


54  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

apparatus  in  Boston  was  engaged  in  fighting  the 
fire.  Meanwhile  the  mercury  kept  dropping  lower 
and  lower  and  the  firemen  were  frozen  to  their 
places.  Indeed,  one  fireman  on  the  aerial  ladder 
was  so  covered  with  ice  that  he  could  not  stir 
and  his  companions  went  to  his  rescue  with 
axes  and  chopped  him  away  from  the  ladder  to 
which  he  was  frozen.  The  business  of  the  section 
was  at  a  standstill.  The  weary  firemen  found 
that  they  could  work  but  a  short  time  before 
they  became  so  numb  that  their  fingers  dropped 
the  hose.  The  rear  doors  of  the  Peirce  store 
were  opened  and  the  fire  fighters  invited  to  enter 
and  have  hot  coffee,  sandwiches  and  other  food 
that  the  firm  provided. 

All  day  long  great  pots  of  coffee  were  kept  hot 
on  the  huge  old-fashioned  stove  that  occupied 
the  center  of  the  salesroom.  Mr.  Peirce's  two 
daughters  came  to  see  the  fire  and  were  pressed 
into  the  service  of  waiting  on  the  firemen.  The 
store  was  kept  open  all  night  and  the  young 
women  remained  until  midnight  serving  hot 
coffee.  The  next  day  they  helped  again,  as  there 
were  a  large  number  of  firemen  at  work  on  the 
burning  building.  The  "all  out"  signal  was  not 
given  for  eight  weeks  and  three  days,  as  the 
greater  part  of  the  building  was  filled  with  flour 
and  canned  goods  packed  solidly  in  storage,  which 
burned  all  this  time. 

Meanwhile  the  cold  weather  continued  and 
the    water   froze    around    the    burning   store.    At 


nil      nil     1111      111!     nil      im     im       mi       iiir 


SILAS  PEIRCE  <fc  CO.  LTD.  55 

night  the  building  looked  like  an  ice  palace  lighted 
from  within,  as  the  brilliant  glow  from  the  fire 
shone  on  the  glittering  masses  of  ice.  Sleighing 
parties  came  from  far  and  near  to  admire  the 
sight  that  was  the  talk  of  the  town.  It  was 
said  that  the  contractor  who  removed  the  ac- 
cumulated ice  agreed  to  do  so  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  expecting  to  put  on  a  force  of 
men  that  could  easily  do  the  work  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  worked 
day  and  night,  including  Sunday,  for  a  week 
before  the  tons  and  tons  of  ice  were  finally  carted 
away,  and  the  contractor's  loss  was  several 
hundred  dollars.  The  picture  of  the  ice- covered 
building  was  photographed  on  January  13,  by 
one  of  the  clerks,  Benjamin  J.  Bowen,  from  the 
top  of  a  low  building  on  the  "dump"  built  for 
the  storage  of  potatoes.  Mr.  Bowen,  who  had 
shown  much  artistic  talent  while  with  the  firm, 
afterwards  took  up  painting  and  is  now  one  of 
the  principal  members  of  a  colony  of  artists  in 
Brittany,  his  pictures  having  been  exhibited 
several  times  in  the  Paris  Salon. 

Horse  Hire 

Prices  of  horse  hire  in  1823  are  shown  by  a  bill 
that  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  contracted  that  year.  For 
a  horse  and  chaise  to  Roxbury  he  paid  one  dollar, 
while  the  same  conveyance  to  Scituate  cost  him 
five,  a  saddle  horse  to  the  latter  place  being  one 
dollar   less.      For    a   four    days'    trip    with    horse 


56  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

and  chaise  to  Amherst,  Mass.,  he  was  charged  ten 
dollars,  and  at  one  time  when  he  went  to  Scituate 
for  two  days  the  stable  keeper  charged  him  only 
five.  Once  or  twice  he  had  a  "hackney  coach," 
but  there  is  no  record  to  show  where  it  went.  How- 
ever, as  the  price  was  a  dollar  and  a  dollar  and  a 
half,  it  is  surmised  that  he  did  not  go  a  very  long 
distance.  By  1834  prices  had  advanced  somewhat 
at  the  livery  stables.  In  that  year  a  saddle  horse 
to  Brookline  or  Cambridge  cost  a  dollar,  while  a 
horse  and  chaise  to  the  latter  place  cost  fifty  cents 
more.  A  horse  and  chaise  to  Lynn  was  two  dollars 
and  a  half,  and  a  post  chaise  to  New  Bedford  was 
eight  dollars.  A  horse  and  chaise  to  Newton  was 
two  dollars  and  a  half,  and  to  Marblehead  fifty 
cents  more. 

Old  Bills 

During  the  preparation  of  this  history  a  large 
amount  of  correspondence  was  found,  some  of 
which  went  back  to  the  early  days  when  the  Founder 
was  beginning  to  make  a  name  for  himself  in  the 
town.  Probably  when  the  firm  moved  to  Com- 
mercial Street  the  greater  part  of  the  books  and 
the  correspondence  was  destroyed.  However,  there 
were  one  or  two  books  already  mentioned  which 
came  from  the  second  Dock  Square  store,  and  there 
are  quite  a  number  of  letters  and  many  bills  from 
Elm  Street.  These  bills  were  from  dealers  in  various 
commodities,  and  the  descendants  of  these  mer- 
chants have  been  seemingly  much  pleased  to  receive 


m 


111!       uii      iii[     lilt      ifii     1111      nil     nil      iirr 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  51 

these  old  invoices  signed  by  the  name  of  a  grand- 
father or  distant  relative.  Several  of  these  bills 
are  for  advertising  in  the  Courier,  the  Gazette,  the 
Transcript  and  other  papers  of  four-score  and  more 
years  ago. 

At  first  each  bill  was  written  out  entirely  by  hand, 
as  printed  billheads  were  not  introduced  into  the 
store  until  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after 
the  business  started.     The  invoice  reproduced  was 


M/i^*i.     ^^^/    /fey 


made  and  receipted  by  Mr.  H.  P.  Gushing.  It 
was  fortunate  for  the  salesmen  of  those  days,  who 
often  had  to  make  the  bills,  that  customers  pur- 
chased in  larger  quantities  than  at  present,  so  that 
there  were  not  as  many  items. 

Discrepancies  in  the  prices  of  different  articles 
are  noticeable  on  some  of  these  bills.  For  instance, 
one  member  of  the  firm  was  paying  two  dollars  and 
seventy-five  cents  a  week  for  board  in  a  first-class 
house,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  obliged  to  give 


58  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

a  dollar  and  a  half  each  for  his  shirts.  In  many 
cases  a  lad  was  hired  for  a  certain  sum  and  his 
board,  and  on  a  number  of  bills  there  is  an  adjust- 
ment of  the  amount  to  be  paid  for  the  young  clerk's 
board  and  lodging. 

Money  Drawer  and  Sand  Box 

One  of  the  curiosities  that  is  shown  to  visitors 
is  the  old  money  drawer  used  by  the  first  Silas 
Peirce  when  he  started  in  business.  The  small, 
time-worn  little  till  is  rather  different  from  the 
modern  drawer  now  used  as  a  money  receptacle. 
It  has  been  worn  thin  in  its  years  and  years  of 
usage,  and  probably  would  not  stand  much  more 
service.  Another  curiosity  is  the  old  sand  box  that 
can  be  traced  back  almost  to  the  beginning  of  the 
concern's  existence. 

"To  Be  Called  For" 

At  the  present  time  the  branch  stores  are  con- 
nected by  rail,  but  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  while 
the  Boston  store  in  its  early  days  had  business  with 
New  Bedford,  Plymouth  and  Portsmouth,  all  of 
these  places  were  served  by  packet.  Large  num- 
bers of  receipts  for  merchandise  shipped  by  coasters 
have  been  found  and  often  the  goods  were  to  be 
left  by  the  captains  at  certain  places  "to  be  called 
for."  The  number  of  interior  points  that  were 
thus  served,  when  the  captain  left  the  merchandise 
on  the  coast  and  the  dealer  drove  from  the  interior 
and  carted  it  away,  looks  amazingly  large  in  these 


A.C.WILLEY 

Salesman 


E.H.MATTISON 

Salesman. 


JAMES  aUIRK 

Office 


ri'ii'iiiiiiiM iiiiniiiiiiiiiMiiniiLi 


lllllinill,!)ll,l,iniiMHUIH MIIIIIlM 


FRANK  BOOMA 

Office 


FRANK  E.  LEAVITT 

Manager 


A.I.HARRIMAN 

Shipper 


JOHNT  W  H.  JACKSON 

Sh  ippin  qDepai^tm  ent 


ORENMSHAW 

Chauffeur 


ARTHUR  E.  BARNES 
Chauffeur 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  59 

days  of  cheap  and  easy  transportation.  The  time 
consumed  by  the  packets  in  delivering  goods  would 
disgust  many  storekeepers  now  when  quick  delivery 
is  such  an  important  feature  in  every  well-regulated 
business. 

Currency  Reform 

Letters  written  to  the  house  in  1834  testify 
eloquently  to  the  manner  in  which  the  merchants 
were  struggling  with  the  changes  in  the  currency 
system.  William  Colgate  &  Company,  then,  as 
now,  one  of  the  principal  business  houses  of  New 
York,  wrote  under  date  of  March  19,  1834:  "Busi- 
ness here  has  been  at  a  stand  while  the  public  mind 
has  been  fully  occupied  with  the  subject  of  the 
National  currency.  The  money  market  appears 
measurably  relieved  and  business  has  partially 
commenced  within  a  few  days  in  this  city.  .  .  . 
The  people  look  for  a  reduction  in  the  price  of  starch; 
we  have  thought  it  best  to  fall  the  price  in  Boston 
to  eight  cents  per  pound  and  charge  for  boxes." 

Another  letter,  written  a  fortnight  later  from 
the  interior  of  Massachusetts,  says:  "I  now  send 
you  one  hundred  dollars  which  is  all  I  can  send 
you  now,  which  you  may  pass  to  my  credit.  I  hope 
you  will  be  as  patient  for  the  remainder  as  possible 
as  we  now  begin  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  Jackson 
administration  in  a  sensible  manner." 

The  Ship  Tiber 
So  eager  was  the  concern  to  keep  posted  on  mer- 
chandise  values   in  foreign   coimtries   that  in   the 


60  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

early  days  an  English  paper  with  market  changes 
was  taken.  There  is  reference  in  one  of  the  Boston 
papers  forty  years  ago  to  the  house  as  known  in 
the  trade  centers  of  Europe.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
three-quarters  of  a  century  ago  the  name  of  Silas 
Peirce  was  as  familiar  in  all  the  exporting  cities 
of  the  Old  World  as  it  is  today  in  New  York  or 
Philadelphia,  for  then  the  house  owned  and  char- 
tered sailing  vessels  and  sent  them  to  Italy,  Greece 
and  the  Dutch  East  Indies.  The  correspondence 
relating  to  these  ventures  is  among  the  most  inter- 
esting that  has  been  found,  and  an  agreement 
relating  to  the  ship  Tiber  gives  an  idea  of  these 
transactions.  Mr.  Peirce  and  another  importer 
sent  this  vessel  on  a  voyage  to  Batavia  and  other 
ports  "for  a  return  Cargo  or  for  Freighting  as  cir- 
cumstances may  render  most  judicious  on  arrival 
at  Batavia."  It  was  agreed  that  the  funds  to  pay 
for  all  outfits  and  sailing  of  the  vessel,  and  for  the 
cost  of  the  outward  cargo  and  insurance  and  all 
expenses  on  same  should  be  equally  divided.  The 
proceeds  of  this  outward  cargo  were  to  be  invested 
in  the  return  cargo.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
investment  in  such  a  venture  was  in  the  insurance, 
but  if  the  vessel  arrived  in  Boston  safely  the  result 
of  the  voyage  was  usually  satisfactory.  Mr.  Peirce's 
vessels  brought  back  large  quantities  of  currants 
from  Greece  and  he  was  one  of  the  largest  importers 
here  of  Italian  products.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
his  voyage  to  Oporto  did  much  to  fashion  his  ideas  as 
to  the  wisdom  of  importing  goods  in  sailing  vessels. 


nil      1111     iHi      1111     nil      1111     1111      nil       mi        f^ 


Hit     III!     iiir     im     irrr 


1111    IIU    nil     im     nil 


m 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  61 

The  Partners 

Nineteen  persons  have  in  its  century  of  history 
been  partners  in  the  concern  or  directors  since  its 
incorporation  in  1900. 

Silas  Peirce,  1st  1815-1857 

William  Thompson,  Jr.  1818-1822 

William  Borrows  1820-1821 

William  Stearns  1826-1832 

Thomas  Hall  1833-1857 

Hayward  P.  Gushing  1833-1863 

Charles  E.  Moody  1857-1868 

Silas  Peirce,  2d  1857-1898 

Nathan  Gushing  1863-1871 

J.  Hamilton  Farrar  1863-1876 

A.  Moreton  Swallow  1871-1890 

Fitzroy  Kelly  *1871-1900 

Edward  H.  Nichols  1876-1900 

Silas  Peirce,  3d  *1889-1900 

John  B.  Glapp  *1889-1900 

Herbert  L.  Kelley  1900 

Amos  T.  Leavitt  1900 

Thomas  L.  Perkins  1900 

F.  Loring  Wheeler  1900 

'Partners,  now  directors. 

The  First  Branch 

Soon  after  the  corporation  was  formed  it  was 
found  that  in  order  to  retain  the  trade  of  eastern 
New  England  a  warehouse  was  necessary  where 
customers  could  have  their  wants  supplied  without 
sending  to  Boston.     On  May  26,  1902,  it  was  de- 


62  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

cided  to  open  a  branch  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  and 
that  date  became  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
history  of  the  concern,  for  after  the  Portsmouth 
store  had  been  in  operation  for  a  time,  the  other 
branches  followed  as  opportunity  offered  to  open 
them.  That  summer  a  committee  of  the  directors 
visited  Portsmouth  but  could  find  no  suitable  place 
for  a  wholesale  grocery.  Finally  it  was  decided  to 
build,  and  a  piece  of  land  and  a  small  wharf  were 
purchased  on  which  a  one-story  building  was  erected. 
Later,  additional  land  was  purchased  next  the  store 
so  that  the  building  can  be  enlarged  when  occasion 
arises. 

The  manager  is  Frank  E.  Leavitt,  a  brother  of 
Amos  T.  Leavitt  of  the  Board  of  Directors.  Mr. 
Leavitt  is  one  of  the  leading  men  of  Portsmouth  and 
has  always  taken  a  great  interest  in  civic  affairs. 
For  years  he  was  president  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  and  held  that  oflice,  together 
with  several  others  in  charitable  and  religious  or- 
ganizations, until  he  was  obliged  to  relinquish  some 
of  them  on  account  of  the  pressure  of  his  other 
duties.  He  is  now  one  of  the  police  commissioners 
of  the  city  and  has  done  much  to  give  Portsmouth  a 
clean  and  efl&cient  administration. 

FiTCHBURG  Branch 

A  branch  at  Fitchburg  was  opened  in  1906  in  a 
barn  that  had  been  used  for  the  storage  of  blinds. 
The  building  was  in  no  way  fitted  for  a  grocery  store 
but  it  was  the  only  available  place  at  the  time  when 


EDWARD  p.  RICH 
Salesman 

II IIIMIIIIMIIIIIIIIMilll 


JOHN  H.KLINE 

Office 


iiiiiiiii niiiiiJiiinniiiiiiiiiirii 

CHARLES  W  GODFREY 
Managrer 


STILLMAN  S.RAND 

Office 


HI    nil    1111   lu:    nil    ii!i  uu    mi   mi    ""     '" 


JiicfiBura  ^rancfi 


LEON  LITTLEHALE     1^"'    ""     ""     ""     ""     ""    ""      ""      ""     "","Si  PAUL  REGAN 

Stock  Department  Stock  Department 


DANIEL  M.\RONEY 
Chcuiffeur 


JOSEPH  J.  DAIGLE 
Chauffeur 


OTTO  HEDSTROM 
Chauffeur 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  63 

the  company  wished  to  establish  a  branch.  In  a 
few  months,  however,  a  handsome  building  that  had 
been  erected  for  a  wholesale  grocery  concern  was 
rented  and  here  the  Fitchburg  business  has  been 
conducted  ever  since.  The  manager  is  Charles  W. 
Godfrey,  one  of  the  oldest  employees  of  the  house, 
who  has  lived  in  Fitchburg  for  fourteen  years  and  is 
one  of  the  best-known  men  in  that  city.  For  some 
years  he  has  served  the  city  as  alderman  and  is  a 
director  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Always  interested 
in  civic  activities,  he  is  vice-president  of  the  Associ- 
ated Charities  and  president  of  the  Visiting  Nurses' 
Association.  He  is  also  connected  with  many  of  the 
religious  and  philanthropic  organizations  of  the  city, 
and  has  shown  throughout  his  career  his  belief  that 
the  best  citizen  is  the  man  who  tries  to  help  his  city. 

At  Plymouth  Rock 

In  1910  it  was  thought  wise  to  open  a  branch 
at  Plymouth,  Mass.,  a  historic  town,  known  not 
only  throughout  the  United  States,  but  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken.  After  several  in- 
effectual attempts  to  obtain  a  building  suitable  for  a 
grocery,  a  grain  mill  was  purchased  and  altered  to 
suit  the  needs  of  the  company.  The  sandy  roads 
about  Plymouth  proved  hard  on  the  horses  and  in 
less  than  three  months  one  of  the  best  animals  died, 
having  been  disabled  by  the  severe  strain.  A  prob- 
lem confronted  the  store  manager,  for  he  was  desir- 
ous of  delivering  goods  in  the  vicinity  of  Plymouth 
and  yet  found  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  do  so 


64  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

without  an  extra  expense  for  horses.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  company's  history,  on  May  1,  1911,  an 
automobile  truck  was  purchased  and  this  solved  the 
question  of  transportation.  Now  all  the  branches 
use  automobile  trucks. 

William  H.  Harriman,  the  manager,  was  brought 
up  in  the  Portsmouth  store  and  when  a  vacancy 
came  at  the  Plymouth  branch,  he  was  promoted. 
The  Plymouth  salesman  is  Edward  S.  Averill,  one 
of  the  best-known  travelling  men  on  the  South 
Shore,  where  he  has  sold  goods  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century. 

New  Bedford  Branch 

One  of  the  most  prosperous  cities  in  the  State  is 
New  Bedford,  famous  alike  for  its  past  history  of 
whale  ships  that  did  so  much  to  build  it  up,  and  its 
present  record  as  a  cotton  manufacturing  city  where 
different  nationalities  dwell  together  in  peace  and 
unity.  In  February,  1914,  an  opportunity  came  to 
purchase  a  wholesale  grocery  that  had  been  obliged 
to  give  up  business.  The  company  purchased  the 
business  and  retained  the  salesmen  and  clerks  who 
had  made  it.  H.  J.  Tripp  is  in  charge  of  this  branch 
and  is  always  alert  in  looking  after  the  interests  of 
the  concern. 

Framingham  Branch 

The  branch  at  Framingham  was  opened  last  June. 
The  most  available  building  was  a  large  straw 
factory  where  formerly  in  prosperous  times  nearly  a 


■ill'     nil    nil     nil    nil     1111    11H     III!      nil       ^ 


n 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  65 

thousand  hands  were  employed.  It  has  the  general 
appearance  of  a  country  hotel  and  the  large  amount 
of  floor  space  makes  it  easy  for  the  porters  to  handle 
goods. 

P.  J.  McCormack,  who  was  brought  up  at  the 
Fitchburg  store  from  a  boy,  has  charge  of  the 
Framingham  branch  and  is  rapidly  making  friends 
in  that  section.  Bion  S.  Jordan,  the  salesman,  has 
been  with  the  house  for  nearly  thirty  years  and  is 
known  and  liked  in  all  the  surrounding  towns.  He 
lives  in  Framingham  and  takes  an  active  interest 
in  its  affairs. 

Men  Who  Deserve  Mention 

There  are  a  number  of  men  employed  by  the 
house  who  have  seen  long  terms  of  service.  Two 
of  the  bookkeepers,  George  A.  Gleason  and  George 
E.  Pratt,  most  efficient  clerks,  are  known  and 
recognized  as  "fixtures"  both  by  the  concern  and 
by  the  customers.  Mr.  Gleason  was  born  in  Mil- 
ford,  Mass.,  and  is  now  in  his  forty-fifth  year  of 
service.  Mr.  Pratt,  a  Bostonian,  educated  at  the 
English  High  School,  began  as  office  boy  in  1883, 
but  instead  of  strolling  in  and  looking  at  the  floor, 
as  the  song  relates,  he  attended  strictly  to  business 
and  has  charge  of  one  of  the  important  branches 
of  office  work. 

The  shipper,  William  Henry  Henderson,  a  native 
of  Roxbury,  has  been  with  the  concern  for  thirty- 
five  years.  Formerly  he  was  a  call-fireman  in  a 
neighboring   city   and   has   rendered   valuable   aid 


66  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

in  putting  out  fires  that  have  started  in  near-by- 
stores. 

Women  Employees 

Thirty  years  ago  the  concern  hired  Sarah  J.  Copi- 
thorne,  one  of  the  best  spice  packers  in  Boston,  to 
assist  in  the  spice  department.  She  remained  for 
over  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  saw  many  changes 
in  business  houses  regarding  the  employment  of 
women.  At  present  there  are  a  number  of  women 
connected  with  the  Peirce  stores,  as  stenographers, 
bookkeepers  and  spice  packers.  In  the  Boston  store 
are  Georgie  M.  Macdonald,  Maude  S.  Waters,  J. 
Blanche  Miner,  Florence  A.  MacKinnon,  and  Mar- 
guerite M.  Keating.  At  Plymouth  is  Beulah  F. 
Lanman,  and  at  New  Bedford  are  Gertrude  O. 
Pedro  and  Susan  P.  Miller. 


C  ALTON  LOWE 

Chauffeur 


ALTON  K  PRATT 

Chauffeur 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  67 

Present  Organization 
Silas  Peirce,  3d,  president  of  the  corporation, 
is  a  Bostonian  by  birth  and  education.  After 
graduating  from  the  English  High  School  in  1878, 
he  took  a  trip  to  Europe  and  on  his  return  entered 
his  father's  store.  He  went  through  the  regular 
routine  of  the  boy  who  begins  at  the  foot,  became 
a  store  salesman  and  in  1889  was  admitted  to 
the  firm.  Mr.  Peirce  is  the  treasurer  of  Boston 
University  and  in  that  capacity  has  done  much 
for  the  finances  of  the  institution.  He  is  the 
vice-president  of  the  Boston  Wesleyan  Associa- 
tion, and  has  held  various  offices  in  the  Boston 
North  End  Mission,  one  of  the  noblest  of  the 
city's  charities,  with  which  his  father  and  mother 
were  connected  for  many  years.  A  director  in 
various  railroads,  trust  companies  and  corporations, 
he  yet  finds  time,  like  his  father,  to  assist  in 
looking  after  the  affairs  of  numerous  philanthropic 
and  benevolent  organizations.  As  a  member  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  he  takes  an  active 
interest  in  it  and  it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that 
the  company  is  represented  in  the  Chamber  by 
seven  members. 

John  B.  Clapp,  treasurer  of  the  company,  was 
born  and  educated  in  Boston,  entering  the  employ 
of  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  on  his  graduation  from  the 
English  High  School.  He  was  admitted  to  partner- 
ship at  the  same  time  as  Silas  Peirce,  3d,  and  on 
the  incorporation  of  the  present  company  became  its 


68  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

treasurer.  His  parents  came  from  Scituate,  where 
several  members  of  the  firm  originated,  as  his 
mother  lived  not  far  from  the  Peirce  farm, 
and  the  house  in  which  his  father  was  born  is 
now  occupied  as  a  summer  residence  by  a  member 
of  Mr.  H.  P.  Cushing's  family.  Mr.  Clapp  has 
been  interested  in  the  study  of  the  stage  for  years, 
having  written  many  articles  and  several  books 
about  plays  and  players  which .  are  accepted  as 
authoritative.  He  is  treasurer  of  the  English  High 
School  Association,  which  has  the  largest  invested 
fund  for  deserving  students  of  any  public  school 
in  the  United  States.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that 
the  president,  treasurer,  one  of  the  directors,  the 
manager  of  the  Fitchburg  branch  and  several 
of  the  bookkeepers  and  clerks  are  all  graduates 
of  this  high  school. 

One  of  the  members  of  the  present  house  who  has 
seen  service  for  more  than  half  a  century,  and  with  a 
larger  number  of  the  former  partners  than  any  one 
else,  is  Fitzroy  Kelly,  a  grand-nephew  of  the  first 
Silas  Peirce.  He  was  born  at  Winterport,  Me., 
the  son  of  Albert  L.  Kelly,  a  prominent  attorney 
there.  Coming  to  Boston,  he  entered  the  employ 
of  the  concern  in  1863.  It  shows  the  changes  in  the 
city  since  the  Civil  War  to  learn  that  the  lad  boarded 
on  Lincoln  Street  when  he  first  arrived  here.  Later 
he  made  other  arrangements  and  for  a  time  shared 
the  room  of  a  clerk  who  slept  in  the  noted  drug  store 
of  I.  Bartlett  Patten,  on  the  corner  of  Beach  Street 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  69 

and  Harrison  Avenue,  taking  his  meals  on  Harrison 
Avenue.  Mr.  Kelly  emphasizes  the  fact  that  he 
began  in  the  "counting  room,"  as  he  says  that  now- 
a-days  there  is  no  such  place,  "oflSce"  being  the 
only  term.  In  proof  of  this  not  long  ago  an  old-time 
merchant  telephoned  to  a  business  house,  asking  if 
one  of  the  partners  would  come  to  his  counting  room. 
The  girl  who  answered  the  telephone  did  not  know 
what  a  counting  room  was  and  the  merchant  had  to 
explain. 

In  1871  Mr.  Kelly  became  a  partner,  and  in  1900, 
when  the  present  corporation  was  formed,  he  was 
made  a  director,  although  he  is  not  actively  engaged 
in  business.  While  connected  with  the  firm  he  was 
much  interested  in  whatever  related  to  trade  affairs 
and  was  prominent  in  business  organizations.  As  a 
director  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  he  did  much 
good  work  with  that  body.  He  was  the  second 
member  of  the  firm  to  become  the  president  of  the 
Boston  Wholesale  Grocers'  Association,  Silas  Peirce, 
2d,  having  previously  held  that  office.  It  is  worthy 
of  mention  that  Silas  Peirce,  3d,  has  but  recently 
retired  from  the  same  presidency.  Mr.  Kelly  takes 
great  interest  in  whatever  relates  to  Boston,  and  is 
a  life  member  of  the  Bostonian  Society. 

The  oldest  man  connected  with  the  house  is 
Thomas  L.  Perkins,  who  began  on  February  1, 1868. 
He  was  born  at  Hampton,  N.  H.,  the  son  of  the  cap- 
tain of  a  fishing  vessel  who  was  lost  during  a  terrible 
storm  on  the  Bay  St.  Lawrence.     The  boy  came  to 


70  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

Boston  and  for  a  time  worked  in  a  dry  goods  store. 
In  the  winter  of  1861  he  enhsted  in  the  regular 
army  in  the  Engineer  Corps  and  was  sent  with  other 
enhsted  men  to  West  Point,  to  be  trained  for  work 
in  the  field.  Mr.  Perkins  left  West  Point  in  the 
spring  and  from  that  time  until  near  the  close  of 
the  war  was  always  busy  near  the  scene  of  hostilities. 

At  the  time  that  he  entered  the  grocery  business 
nearly  all  goods  were  sold  in  bulk  and  it  was  neces- 
sary for  any  one  in  the  business  to  be  a  good  judge 
of  merchandise  if  he  hoped  for  success.  Mr.  Perkins 
was  especially  interested  in  molasses,  teas  and 
coffees.  In  a  few  years  his  judgment  was  sought  as 
quickly  as  that  of  any  man  in  the  business  here, 
and  it  is  due  to  his  remarkable  knowledge  of  teas, 
coffees  and  molasses  that  the  concern  has  made 
these  departments  successful. 

A  story  that  shows  how  remarkable  is  his  knowl- 
edge of  teas  has  often  been  told  by  the  manager  of 
the  Portsmouth  Branch,  Mr.  Frank  E.  Leavitt. 
Some  years  ago  one  of  Mr.  Leavitt's  customers  was 
a  Chinaman,  who  dealt  only  in  high-class  goods. 
One  day  he  asked  Mr.  Leavitt  to  have  a  cup  of  tea 
with  him  and  later  insisted  on  presenting  his  guest 
with  a  package  of  the  tea,  which  he  mentioned  as 
something  not  often  seen  in  this  country.  Mr. 
Leavitt,  to  test  the  ability  of  Mr.  Perkins  to  judge 
all  kinds  of  teas,  sent  to  Boston  a  sample  of  the 
Chinaman's  tea,  with  the  message  stating  that  this 
was  from  a  Portsmouth  customer  and  that  he  would 
like  Mr.  Perkins  to  say  at  what  price  it  could  be 


J.  B.  HATHAWAY 
Salesman 


HARVEY  A.SHERMAN 
Tra  nsporta  tion 


ALFRED   KING 

Shipping  Department 


IMiiiii iiiiiiniiniiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiinmTr 


"""""""""""""■" ' iniLiniiiilMllliil. 

HERBERT  J.TRIPP 
Manager 


.% 


ew 


Dedford 
Branch , 


INIIIIMMniiMIIMhJIIIIIIDIIinilTTTT' 


WALTER  E.  CUNNrNGHAM 
Assistant  Shipper 


PHILIP   BRIGHTMAN 

Shipper 


E.ALTON  TRIPP 
Salesman 


JOSHUA  E.DELANO 
Stock  Department 


JAMES  E.RYAN 

Shipping  Department 


PETER  PEMENTEL 

Shipping  Department 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  71 

matched.  The  latter  examined  the  sample  very 
carefully  and  after  due  deliberation  sent  word  to  Mr. 
Leavitt  that  the  tea  could  not  be  matched  in  this 
country,  and  if  any  customer  in  Portsmouth  had 
such  a  tea,  which  grew  only  in  a  certain  section  of 
China,  it  must  have  been  brought  to  this  country  by 
a  Chinaman  or  a  returned  missionary,  for  he  had 
not  seen  a  tea  like  it  for  thirty-five  years.  When 
the  result  of  the  test  was  reported  to  the  Portsmouth 
Chinaman  he  could  hardly  credit  it,  believing  that 
the  Boston  man  must  be  a  wizard.  Among  other 
teas  that  have  been  sent  to  Mr.  Perkins  for  examina- 
tion was  a  Russian  caravan  tea  worth  almost  its 
weight  in  gold,  and  a  tiny  sample  of  tea  that,  it  was 
claimed,  was  carried  away  from  the  Boston  Tea 
Party  by  one  of  the  "Indians"  in  his  shoes. 

Mr.  Perkins  is  known  to  all  of  the  older  store 
customers  and  in  many  cases  has  sold  the  father 
until  the  business  was  left  to  the  son,  when  he  has 
continued  to  sell  the  son. 

Amos  T.  Leavitt^  is  another  of  the  managing 
directors  who  comes  from  New  Hampshire.  Born 
in  Hampton,  he  graduated  from  the  Academy  of  his 
native  town,  and  coming  to  Boston  found  employ- 
ment in  a  retail  store.  But  the  boy  had  ambitions 
beyond  the  retail  business,  and  after  a  few  months 
started  again  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder,  this  time  with 
Silas  Peirce  &  Co.,  as  he  wished  to  be  connected 
with  a  wholesale  business.  He  went  with  the  con- 
cern on  October  3,  1887,  and  worked  hard  during 


72  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

the  day  and  in  the  early  morning  and  at  night  carried 
papers  to  eke  out  his  small  salary.  After  some 
years  he  was  a  store  salesman  and  besides  made 
one  or  two  trips  a  month  through  the  country. 
When  the  corporation  was  formed  he  was  made  a 
director  and  has  shown  judgment  and  tact  in  the 
management  of  the  business,  always  resourceful  in 
his  settlements  of  the  problems  that  arise  where 
many  men  are  employed. 

Mr.  Leavitt  lives  in  Quincy,  where  he  has  always 
shown  a  pronounced  interest  in  everything  that 
relates  to  the  affairs  of  the  city.  He  is  an  active 
and  energetic  worker  in  numerous  philanthropic 
organizations  and  as  one  of  the  trustees  of  Hampton 
Academy  has  done  much  to  keep  the  alumni  together 
and  maintain  the  spirit  that  characterized  the  school 
in  his  day.  It  is  rather  a  curious  fact  that  while 
neither  Mr.  Leavitt,  nor  the  president,  nor  the 
treasurer  were  college  graduates,  all  three  have  been 
intimately  connected  with  educational  matters. 

Herbert  L.  Kelley  was  born  in  Belgrade,  Me., 
and  like  many  other  lads  of  the  Pine  Tree  State 
came  to  Boston  to  seek  his  fortune.  For  a  short  time 
he  was  with  the  Continental  Sugar  Refinery,  where 
he  attracted  the  attention  of  Silas  Peirce,  2d,  who 
engaged  him,  and  on  September  12,  1887,  young 
Kelley  entered  the  oflBce  of  the  Peirce  store.  Some- 
time later  the  death  of  Paul  J.  Cooledge,  a  salesman 
who  had  a  trade  through  certain  parts  of  New 
Hampshire,  left  a  vacancy  which  Mr.  Kelley  filled 


nil      mi     nil      im     im      mi     im      mi       mi        N^ 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  73 

so  satisfactorily  that  he  has  travelled  in  that  section 
ever  since.  He  is  also  well  liked  in  Maine,  where 
he  has  sold  goods  for  many  years.  He  pays  great 
attention  to  the  details  of  the  merchandise  in  the 
various  stores  and  visits  them  regularly  to  see  that 
they  are  properly  stocked. 

F.  LoRiNG  Wheeler  was  born  in  Boston  and  was 
educated  at  the  English  High  School.  His  grand- 
father was  long  one  of  the  prominent  retail  grocers 
here  and  at  the  time  of  the  seventy-fifth  anniversary 
dinner  of  the  firm  was  the  oldest  customer  living. 
Another  of  Mr.  Wheeler's  near  relatives  was  also  a 
grocer,  so  it  was  only  natural  that  he  should  wish 
to  take  up  the  same  business.  On  September  23, 
1873,  he  entered  the  employ  of  the  firm.  For  years 
Mr.  Wheeler  travelled  on  the  South  Shore  and  was 
well  known  throughout  the  territory  that  is  now 
supplied  by  the  Plymouth  branch.  Before  the 
present  corporation  was  organized,  Mr.  Wheeler 
also  sold  goods  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  and  was  a  frequent 
visitor  there  during  the  summer  months.  Of  late 
years  he  has  given  his  attention  to  the  canned  goods 
and  dried  fruit  departments. 


74  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 


CHRONOLOGY 

1793.  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  is  born  in  Egypt,  Scituate,  Mass. 

1808.  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  arrives  in  Boston. 

1814.  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  sails  to  Oporto,  Portugal. 

1815.  April,   Silas  Peirce,   1st,  begins    business    at   21 

Dock  Square. 

1816.  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  removes  to  6  Market  Square. 
1818.     William  Thompson,  Jr.,  becomes  a  partner  with 

Mr.  Peirce. 

1820.  WilHam  Borrows  enters  the  firm. 

1821.  Mr.  Borrows  retires. 

1822.  Mr.  Thompson  retires. 

Mr.  Peirce  moves  to  No.  2,  Sears  Buildings,  Elm 
Street. 
1826.     Silas  Peirce,  1st,  and  William  Stearns  in  partner- 
ship. 
Hayward  P.  Gushing  commences  with  the  firm. 

1829.  *February  11,  Fire  in  Dock  Sq  &  Broad  St. 
♦February  12,  Fire  in  Charlestown  and  4  persons 

burnt. 
♦February  16,  Fire  in  Essex  St.  Glass  Houses. 
♦February  25,  Blanchard's  store  burnt. 
♦June  2,  J.  Quincy  inaugurated  Pres.  of  Harvard 

University. 

1830.  ♦February  1,  Dr.  Beecher's  church  burnt  morning. 
♦March  26,  Great  snow  storm  and  very  high  tides  in 

consequences. 
♦June  5,  S.  P.  gone  to  New  York. 
♦June  12,  S.  P.  returned  from  New  York. 
♦August  20,  Mr.  P.  set  out  for  Frankfort. 
♦August  25,  Commencement. 
♦September  3,  News  reed  of  Revolution  in  France. 
♦November  1,  Cloudy  a.m.     U.  S.  Senator  elected. 
1832.  ♦February  22,  Washington's  Centennial  birthday. 
♦August  15,  First  appearance  in  the  city  of  cholera. 

*Early  sales  book^  contain  almost  daily  items  regarding  weather  and  current  events. 
Lin'»  starred  are  selected  from  these  records. 


HERVEY  H.  FROST 

Shipping  Department 


WILLIAM  A.  MORROW 

Chauffeur 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  75 

1832.  William  Stearns  withdraws  to  establish  the  firm 

of  Stearns  &  Crosby. 

1833.  October    8,    Silas    Peirce,   1st,   Hayward    Peirce 

Gushing  and  Thomas  Hall  in  partnership. 

1840.     J.  Hamilton  Farrar  enters  the  employ  of  the  firm. 
1845.     Silas  Peirce,  2d,  enters  the  employ  of  the  firm. 

1853.  *December  29,  No  business  at  all.     Big  Snow  Storms 

no  one  about. 

1854.  *May  12,  3  cases  Cholera  reported.     2  Died. 
*May  13,  4  cases  reported. 

*July  8,  24  Deaths  from  Cholera. 
♦July  22,  14     " 

through  Aug.  to  Middle  of  Sept. 

1855.  The  firm  purchases  lot  No.  59  and  61  Commercial 

Street. 

1856.  The  firm  occupies  a  part  of  the  store  at  59  and  61 

Commercial  Street. 

1857.  Silas  Peirce,  2d,  and  Charles  E.  Moody  enter  the 

firm. 
Thomas  Hall  retires. 
♦January  19,  No  business  —  Snow  Storm. 
♦April  21,  $120.05  Total  Sales,  Rain  all  Day. 
♦April  22,  $5908.50    "         "     (Cleared  up.) 
1861.  ♦December  31,  Banks  suspended. 

1863.     January  1,  Nathan  Gushing  and  J.  H.  Farrar  enter 
the  firm. 
♦January  21,  Fitzroy  Kelly  commenced. 

1868.  January  1,  Charles  E.  Moody  withdraws  to  estab- 

lish the  firm  of  Charles  E.  Moody  &  Co. 
♦January  7,  E.  H.  Nichols  commenced. 
♦February  1,  Thomas  L.  Perkins  commenced. 
♦March  21,  Sales  925.78.     Snow  Storm  12  in. 
♦March  23,     "     $4421.82. 

1869.  ♦June  15,  Commencement  of  Peace  Jubilee. 
♦June  16,  General  Grant  in  Town. 

1870.  *September  14,  Sales  9183.52.     19|  pages  on  sales 

book. 


76  A  CENTURY  OF  SERVICE 

1870.  *October  20,  Sales  4432.04.     Earthquake. 
*November  15,  Geo.  A.  Gleason  commenced. 

1871.  January  1,  A.  M,  Swallow  and  Fitzroy  Kelly  enter 

the  firm.     Nathan  Gushing  retires. 

1872.  *October  24,  Horse  distemper. 

♦November  9,  Commencement  of  Fire;  loss  $100,- 
000,000. 

1873.  *August  4,  J.  B.  Clapp  commenced. 
♦September  19-20-22,  Panic. 
♦September  23,  F.  L.  Wheeler  commenced. 

1875.  ♦March  4,  Heavy  Snow  Storm   during  the  night. 

R.  R.  blocked  up.    All  hands  late. 

1876.  ♦January  1,  E.  H.  Nichols  admitted. 

J.  H.  Farrar  retires. 

1877.  ♦April  24,  War  declared  between  Russia  &  Turkey. 

1878.  ♦December  2,  Silas  Peirce,  3d,  commenced  (wc) . 

1879.  ♦August  27,  Silas  Peirce,  1st,  died,  aged  86  years. 
♦October  9,  Thomas  Hall       "      aged  67      " 
♦November  3,  Heavy  Snow  Storm  over  N.  Eng., 

15  in. 
♦November  13,  Thunder  &  Lightning. 

1880.  ♦June  5,  Commenced  to  close  at  2  p.m.  Saturdays 

during  June,  July  &  Aug.     Given  up  after  trial 

3  or  4  times. 
♦September  17,  250  Anniversary  of  the  Settlement 

of  Boston.     Big  parade. 
♦September  25,  W.  H.  Henderson  commenced. 
♦November  13,  A.  M.  Swallow  injured. 

1883.  ♦July  9,  Geo.  E.  Pratt  commenced. 

1884.  ♦May  10,  Mrs.  Fitzroy  Kelly  receiving  congratu- 

lations —  it's  a  girl. 

1886.  June  1,  Edward  S.  Averill  commences. 
June  30,  Charles  W.  Godfrey  commences. 

1887.  ♦September  12,  H.  L.  Kelley  commenced. 
♦October  3,  A.  T.  Leavitt  commenced. 

1890.     January  1,  Bion  S.  Jordan  commences. 


SILAS  PEIRCE  &  CO.  LTD.  77 

1890.  April  1,  Seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding 
of  the  house  celebrated  by  a  dinner  at  Young's 
Hotel. 

1900.    April  1,  The  firm  of  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  incorporated 
as  Silas  Peirce  &  Co.  Ltd. 
April  9,  Charles  F.  Parker,  William  B.  McClin- 
tock  and  John  F.   Kearns,  Jr.,  commence  as 
salesmen. 
May  3,  Frank  E.  Leavitt  commences. 

1902.  November  26,  Branch  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  opens. 

1903.  September  15,  William  H.  Harriman  commences. 
1906.     June  12,  Branch  at  Fitchburg,  Mass.,  opens. 

October  1,  Louis  B.  Weston  commences, 
November  5,  P.  J.  McCormack  commences. 
1908.     September  5,  William  H.  Eckert  commences. 

1910.  November,  Branch  at  Plymouth,  Mass.,  opens. 

1911.  May    1,    Auto    truck   purchased   for    Plymouth 

branch.     First  one  used  by  the  house. 

1912.  August  1,  Arthur  C.  England  commences. 

1914.  February,  Branch  at  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  opens. 
June,  Branch  at  Framingham,  Mass.,  opens. 

1915.  April  3,  Centenary  Dinner  at  Young's  Hotel  to 

the  employees  and  their  wives.  145  present. 
Blizzard.  Many  lives  lost  along  the  coast. 
Good  sleighing  in  towns  near  Boston  on  Easter 
Sunday,  April  4. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


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